Connecticut's Renewable Energy Project
Question: What are the facts regarding the use of clean wood from construction or demolition activities (C&D Wood”) as a biomass fuel? Answer: The Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management, a group composed of the environmental agencies of 8 northeastern states including the Connecticut DEP, analyzed the emissions from burning wood fuels derived from construction and demolition debris in a May 2006 report. It concluded “a review of the data shows that the use of appropriately processed C&D wood is similar in its emission profile to that of virgin wood”. http://www.nscaum.org. In February 23, 2006 testimony of CT Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Gina McCarthy supports the use of wood from construction and demolition waste for electrical generation. Commissioner McCarthy states “With respect to air emissions from the combustion process of processed C&D waste, provided that appropriate air pollution control equipment is in place, and operating there is little difference in the emissions from processed C&D waste, wood chips or other regenerable biomass.” Question: Do other states permit the use of C&D Wood fuel? Answer: Electrical generation using wood and wood derived from C&D is done routinely in other states. California is very similar to Connecticut with respect to the stringency of its air emission requirements. In California, there are 29 operating biomass power plants totaling 600 MW of electrical power generation using over 5 million tons per year of wood fuel of which one third is sourced from urban areas. All of these projects successfully meet California’s stringent air emission regulations. Also, C&D wood combustion is permitted and compliance has been demonstrated in Maine, Michigan, Florida and other states with far less efficient combustion technology and air pollution controls than will be included in the Plainfield Project With the exception of New Hampshire, there are no specific bans on use of C&D wood as fuel in other Northeast states. In fact, states encourage use of C&D wood fuel as a favorable alternative to disposal in landfills. In New Hampshire, its use is restricted for political, not health and safety reasons. Question: Does the Plainfield Renewable Energy Project help reduce global warming? Answer: It is well known that renewable energy facilities have low greenhouse gas emissions. Biomass projects using urban wood waste, such as the Plainfield Renewable Energy Project (PRE), are especially beneficial. The California Public Utilities Commission and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory have determined that projects like PRE actually have negative net greenhouse gas emissions: “In particular, electric generation using biomass (e.g., agricultural and wood waste, landfill gas) that would otherwise be disposed of under a variety of conventional methods (such as open burning, forest accumulation, landfills, composting) results in a substantial net reduction in GHG emissions. This is because the usual disposal options for biomass wastes emit large quantities of methane gas, whereas the electricity production alternatives either burn the wastes that would become methane gas or burn the methane gas itself, generating CO2. Since methane gas is some twenty-five times more potent as a GHG than CO2, and since the two gases have similar atmospheric residence times, trading off methane gas for CO2 emissions from energy recovery operations leads to a net reduction of the greenhouse effect.” Public Utilities Commission of the State of California, Rulemaking 06-04-009, “Interim Opinion on Phase 1 Issues: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Performance Standard,” pp. 104-105 (Dec. 13, 2006). Available online at http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/EFILE/PD/62840.pdf. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) arrived at the same conclusion. NREL calculated the net greenhouse gas emissions of various power generating technologies. For biomass power systems utilizing urban wood waste, it concluded that there was a net reduction of 410 grams of CO2 equivalent per net kilowatt-hour generated. See National Renewable Energy Laboratory, “Biomass Power and Conventional Fossil Systems with and without CO2 Sequestration – Comparing the Energy Balance, Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Economics” (Jan. 2004). Available online at http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/32575.pdf The projected net generation from the Plainfield Project is approximately 300,000 megawatt-hours per year. Based on this NREL factor, PRE will result in a net reduction of greenhouse gas emissions of about 135,000 tons of CO2 equivalent per year. Question: What support does the PRE Project have among the environmental community? Answer: The Natural Resources Defense Council (http://www.nrdc.org/), a leading national environmentalist organization which has been in the forefront of environmental advocacy, supports the Plainfield Renewable Energy project and its fuel usage. NRDC is taking a major role in thoughtfully guiding our country in the use of environmentally-sound renewable power. NRDC in its letter dated April 5, 2006 to Plainfield Renewable Energy states “that NRDC has reviewed the plans for Plainfield Renewable Energy project and found that the categories of wood you propose to use meet our criteria for environmentally acceptable wood.”… “In particular the standard for cleaned wood from construction and demolition debris appears to exclude all of the materials of concern to NRDC. As a result, if your specifications for sorting and picking these materials are closely adhered to, the project will only be using environmentally acceptable wood fuel.” This letter was signed by Mr. Nathanael Greene, Director of NRDC’s Bio-Fuel Research Project and was approved by NRDC’s Senior Scientist, Dr. Allen Hershkowitz. Dr. Hershkowitz served on the National Academy of Sciences’ National Research Council Committee on the Health Effects of Waste Incineration and prior to that he served as the Chairman of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner’s Advisory Board on Operating Requirements for Municipal Solid Waste Incinerators. He currently serves on DuPont’s Bio-based Fuels Life-Cycle Assessment Advisory Board. In a second letter of support sent by NRDC to the CT Department of Public Utility Control dated September 24, 2007, NRDC states in part: “the standard for clean wood from construction and demolition debris appears to exclude all of the materials of concern to NRDC from an air quality and public health perspective.” Question: What types of wood will PRE use as biomass fuel? Answer: We will use wood from a wide variety of sources including land clearing, pallets, brush, bark, tree trimming and the clean wood component from C&D debris. PRE will primarily source fuel from inside Connecticut (within a 25 to 100 mile radius of the facility), since fuel cost is very sensitive to transportation. The CT DPUC has required that the majority of PRE’s biomass fuel be wood derived from construction and demolition debris. The US EPA and all states (including Connecticut) regulate C&D as non-hazardous waste and the CT DPUC believes that PRE’s use of wood from C&D sources will promote the use of biomass as a renewable resource for Connecticut. The PRE facility will only accept a clean biomass stream that has been carefully prepared from sorted components of C&D, and which complies with Connecticut law including removal of many items, such as asbestos, creosote, pesticides, and hazardous waste (§22a-208x and §22a-209a.). PRE has strict fuel monitoring protocols for fuel delivered from any fuel supplier, including extensive fuel testing both at the supplier’s site and at the Plainfield location. Question: Does the PRE facility use water in its operation? Answer: Besides a small amount of potable water usage, the PRE plant will use cooling water from the Quinebaug River. PRE uses a process of re-circulating wet cooling considered by both the US EPA and the United States Second District Court as the Best Available Technology (BAT). This process recycles the water five times, greatly reducing the amount used. As a result, the net water usage will average approximately 530,000 gallons per day rather than the many millions of gallons that power plants use with traditional once-through cooling. The cooling water supplied from the Quinebaug River represents merely 0.1 percent of the river’s average flow and only about 1 percent of flow during extreme low flow conditions. After an extensive review, the CT Department of Environmental Protection Fisheries Division stated in their May 2007 letter that the use of the proposed cooling system will result in no adverse impact on the Quinebaug River or the fish species. In addition, the difference in water surface elevation with diversion is negligible, less than 0.01 foot at extreme low flow conditions (7Q10). Question: What advantages does the Plainfield Renewable Energy Project bring to Connecticut and the local community? Answer: The PRE Project brings with it a long list of advantages for Connecticut and the community. The Project will
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