“But come now, change thy theme, and sing of the building of
the horse of wood, which Epeius made with Athena’s help, the horse which once
Odysseus led up into the citadel as a thing of guile, when he had filled it
with the men who sacked Ilion.” — The Odyssey, Homer
The Michigan Legislature is considering a bill that changes the Clean, Renewable
and Efficient Energy Act in order to “remove unnecessary burdens on the
appropriate use of solid waste as a clean energy source.” The act encourages
the development and use of renewable energy sources like solar, wind, hydro, coal-fired
power using carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies and biomass.
Obviously, the addition of solid waste into the fuel mix as “renewable energy”
has many people up in arms.
Leaving aside the discussion of whether burning waste should
be defined as “renewable energy,” what exactly is being proposed? The bill
seeks to change the definition of “renewable energy resource” to add municipal
solid waste and other types of wastes allowed to be placed into
incinerators to be used as fuel. The bill’s opponents have focused on used
tires, but the universe of potential fuels is much larger.
So, what type of technology are we talking about? Detroit
residents are likely familiar with the controversial history of its own waste incinerator.
EPA reports that there are 86
facilities in the United States using combustion of solid waste to
generate power. This process is much more common in Europe, where 450 facilities burn nearly one-quarter of all solid waste produced
there.
U.S. regulations governing air emissions still apply to these types of incinerators with EPA recently
proposing new Clean Air Act regulations governing them.
Practically speaking, burning some of these wastes are problematic from a
technical standpoint, especially items like rubber tires, which require
shredding and mixing with other types of fuels to get them to burn efficiently.
But, the fact that they are commonly used here, in Europe and Asia demonstrates
that waste-to-energy plants are not a novel or unique concept.
The benefits of this technology include diversion of waste
from landfills to incinerators, decreasing the number of landfills and increase
the lives of existing landfills. Instead of being sequestered in large confined
holes in the ground where it generates methane, contaminated leachate and
reduces the amount of useful space, power is generated.
The negatives are also evident. Diversion of wastes to
incinerators reduces the incentive to recycle. While the Clean Air Act applies
to its air emissions, no system is perfect and living in the vicinity of these
facilities generates significant community objections in the form of odors,
particulate matter and exposure to fugitive emissions. Further, the ash itself
can be a concentrated mass of contaminants that itself needs to be transported
to landfills or even reused in a variety of ways.
Ultimately, the question is not so much whether
waste-to-energy facilities will continue to operate or even be built — they
will. The bill does nothing to require its adoption and it’s hard to see how
adding it to the definition of “renewable energy” actually reduces any “burden”
to the utilization of the technology.
Looking at the act itself, it purports to encourage the
following: diversify energy resources, provide greater energy security,
encourage private investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency, and
provide improved air quality to the citizens of Michigan. By adding a new
purpose to the list (i.e., remove unnecessary burdens for waste-to-energy
facilities), the question remains how the bill does that, exactly, as this
technology is already established. The bill and its supporters really haven’t
answered that question.
The bill is not reducing any “burden” on the use of
waste-to-energy facilities, but providing an incentive for its use – in effect
promoting it. If the technology is one that the Michigan legislature wants to
promote and encourage, it should probably do so in a stand-alone bill.
Shoehorning a technology into a bill that creates incentives for renewable
energy is a curious way to go about it.
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