Comments sought on coal-to-oil plant's CO2 emissions

Turns out the Department of Energy-financed coal-to-diesel facility planned for the Schuylkill County community of Gilberton is going to dump more global warming pollution into the atmosphere than the agency originally thought.

A lot more.

Last week, DOE announced that it was opening a 45-day comment period on a supplement to the draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Gilberton Coal-to-Clean Fuels Project. It issued the supplement to correct an error in the original EIS that put atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions from the plant at 832,000 tons per year. As it turns out, DOE failed to account for the concentrated CO2 stream flowing from the facility's gas cleanup system -- a whopping 1,450,000 tons of CO2 for total annual emissions of 2,282,000 tons per year. To put that amount in perspective, consider that a recent study estimated global CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion in 2003 at just over 28 billion tons.

Because I submitted comments on the original EIS, DOE's National Energy Technology Laboratory sent me a copy of the supplement, which is also available on NETL's Web site here. DOE reconsidered its original analysis after several commenters raised concerns about CO2. One of the those commenters -- the Natural Resources Defense Council -- wrote four letters and met with DOE officials to share concerns about the plant's emissions. The commenters succeeded in getting DOE to reconsider its original statement, the supplement says:

In considering these comments, DOE found that the annual rate of CO2 emissions reported in the Draft EIS included only the total quantity of CO2 that would be emitted directly from the proposed facilities. The reported quantity did not include a larger quantity of CO2 in a concentrated stream exiting the Rectisol unit that would also be emitted. It was previously anticipated that this stream would be sold; however, the industrial participant has informed DOE that the commercial sale of the CO2 would not occur in the foreseeable future, and therefore, all of the CO2 would be emitted to the atmosphere.

(For more on the Rectisol process, click here.)

The supplement also discusses the feasibility of carbon sequestration, or underground storage, which DOE says would entail either piping it to a site in Western Pennsylvania or into local unmineable coal seams, though it acknowledges the latter alternative couldn't accommodate the facility's lifetime CO2 production, estimated at 72 million tons. NRDC urged DOE to consider sequestration, noting that the Gilberton project is funded by the Bush administration's Clean Coal Power Initiative, which aims to develop low-emissions coal technologies. As NRDC Climate Center Policy Director David Doniger wrote in a Feb. 7, 2006 letter to DOE:

As the source of federal funds for the project, DOE is obligated to factor climate change considerations into its EIS for the Gilberton plant. The CCPI's goals of fostering commercially viable, environmentally acceptable technologies for coal generated energy cannot be met by ignoring the increased CO2 emissions from demonstration projects and NRDC submits this technology cannot be demonstrated to be commercially viable and environmentally acceptable without demonstrating application of [CO2 capture and storage] part of this project.

DOE's move to release a fresh accounting of the Gilberton project's climate impact comes as sustainable energy advocates are asking Congress to slash funding for its coal technology research; that would spell disaster for the Gilberton project, which is heavily dependent on government subsidies. In a Dec. 27 letter delivered to Congressional leaders, more than 100 representatives of various business, consumer and environmental organizations asked that federal energy research and development funds be shifted away from fossil fuel and nuclear power programs toward initiatives supporting renewable energy and energy efficiency. Among the programs they specifically asked Congress to cut was the Clean Coal Power Initiative, which got $50 million in Fiscal Year 2006.

DOE invites interested parties to submit comments on the supplement during the 45-day comment period that begins tomorrow, Jan. 16. Comments may be mailed to Janice L. Bell, NEPA Document Manager, U.S. Department of Energy, National Energy Technology Laboratory, M/S 58-247A, P.O. Box 10940, Pittsburgh, PA 15236. They can also be faxed to 412-386-4806 or e-mailed to jbell@netl.doe.gov.

For more information about the Gilberton project from the company promoting it (Waste Management and Processors Inc., headed by local waste-coal baron John W. Rich Jr.), visit www.ultracleanfuels.com. For more from Schuylkill Taxpayers Opposed to Pollution, which is fighting the project, visit www.ultradirtyfuels.com.

Obscure agency blocks Pa. mercury pollution rule

Who the hell is the Legislative Reference Bureau? And why is it doing the bidding of Pennsylvania's coal-burning power plant industry?

The agency, which is responsible for publishing a record of administrative actions, has sided with Senate opponents of Gov. Ed Rendell's proposed rule cracking down on mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants and refused to publish the rule's text in the Pennsylvania Bulletin, according to the Centre Daily Times. An administrative rule must be published there in order to take effect.

Senators, who voted 40-10 last June to adopt the federal government's less-strict mercury rule, have insisted that the chamber's official period to review the proposed mercury rule, and possibly object to it, is continuing.

However, the Rendell administration has maintained that the legislative review period expired Nov. 30, the constitutional end of the prior two-year General Assembly term, and that the Legislative Reference Bureau has no business objecting to the rule.

"We believe the regulations should be posted and that the Legislative Reference Bureau has overstepped ... the scope of its authority by not posting them," Rendell press secretary Kate Philips said Monday.

John Hanger, president of public-interest law firm PennFuture, issued a press release calling on the General Assembly's leadership to direct LRB to publish the regulation:

"This action is simply pathetic," said Hanger. "The mercury regulation is vitally necessary to protect women and developing fetuses from exposure to high levels of toxic mercury contamination, a powerful neurotoxin which can interfere with the proper development of babies' brains. This rule has undergone a two-year public participation process with an unprecedented outpouring of support from nearly 11,000 citizens from across the Commonwealth, and has been approved by the Environmental Quality Board, the Independent Regulatory Review Commission and the Pennsylvania Attorney General. Yet now, an unelected bureaucrat, with no legal authority to do so, has decided to usurp the legal process and prevent this regulation from becoming law.

"It is ironic, to say the least, that while the LRB calls itself 'a strictly nonpartisan agency of the Pennsylvania General Assembly,' it is apparently carrying the water for a distinct minority of elected officials who have tried and failed repeatedly to stop this regulation," continued Hanger. "The rule was passed legally and finally despite the protestations of some very powerful elected officials. The LRB has no legal authority to stop this regulation, and must be ordered to do its job and publish the rule.

"This last minute backroom ploy is just the kind of behavior the voters clearly abhor," continued Hanger. "We call on the new leadership in both houses to put a stop to this high-handed action, and protect Pennsylvania's children by ordering the LRB to cease and desist in its attempt to thwart the democratic process."

Rendell's rule would require the state's coal-fired plants to cut mercury pollution by 90 percent by 2015. If the rule takes effect, Pennsylvania would become the nation's largest coal-mining and coal-burning state to approve a regulation tougher than federal requirements.

The Hometown area suffers from high levels of mercury pollution emitted from the anthracite region's many dirty waste-coal-fired power plants. In fact, Schuylkill County has more such plants than any other county in the nation, according to the Philadelphia-based Energy Justice Network.

EPA flips off public, limits toxic release reporting

Despite overwhelming opposition from we the people, the EPA has moved ahead and reduced reporting requirements for polluters under the Toxic Release Inventory program. The move will make it that much harder for residents of the Hometown area and other communities impacted by corporate polluters to get information about what's being dumped in the air they breathe.

"EPA's actions take us back to the dark ages when the public knew nothing about toxic releases and when companies couldn't be held accountable for pollution that threatened public health," U.S. PIRG staff attorney Alex Fidis said in a news release. "EPA is substituting a don't ask, don't tell policy for a program that works to protect public health and the environment."

The new rule will allow companies to use or release four to 10 times more toxic chemicals before they are required to submit a report. It will also allow companies to withhold information about the use and production of dangerous persistent bioaccumulative toxics. EPA had planned to change the frequency of reports from once a year to once every two years but abandoned the proposal in response to public outcry.

The TRI program was established in 1988 as a response to the 1984 disaster in Bhopal, India, where a Union Carbide plant accidentally released 40 tons of deadly methyl isocyanate into the environment, killing more than 3,000 people outright and sickening at least 150,000 others. Shortly after the Bhopal incident, there was a serious chemical release at a Union Carbide pesticide plant in West Virginia, leading to the hospitalization of six workers and 135 local residents. Union Carbide is now owned by Dow Chemical, which has denied liability for the incident.

The Union Carbide disasters spurred U.S. public-interest and environmental organizations to demand information on toxic chemicals being released into communities. Their demands led Congress to pass the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act, which created the TRI reporting program.