Utility to retrofit Ohio plant for biomass

By Joe Truini

FirstEnergy Corp. plans to convert one of its Ohio coal-fired power plants into one of the largest biomass facilities in the United States.

The Akron, Ohio-based utility will retrofit units 4 and 5 at its R.E. Burger Plant in Shadyside, Ohio, to generate electricity by burning plant biomass. It expects the project to cost $200 million. The coal-fired units are capable of producing 312 megawatts of electricity, enough to power about 190,000 homes, which will boost FirstEnergy’s renewable energy portfolio to 1,100 megawatts once converted.

“This project will help jump-start the biomass renewable energy industry here in Ohio and also serve as a model for projects throughout the U.S.,” said Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland.

It also will keep the 95 workers at the Belmont County, Ohio, power plant employed, while supporting state and federal efforts to increase renewable energy use, said Anthony J. Alexander, FirstEnergy CEO. The utility had until March 31 to determine the future of the power plant under the terms of a federal consent decree it signed involving a 2005 New Source Review settlement.

RenewaFuel LLC, a subsidiary of Cliffs Natural Resources Inc., will design, build and operate a facility that will produce biomass cubes for the Burger Plant. The plant burns some 800,000 tons of coal annually. The biomass project could eliminate 1. 3 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year, the equivalent of removing 270,000 cars from the road.

The retrofit should be completed by 2012, said FirstEnergy spokesman Mark Durbin. The company’s goal is to burn 100% biomass in the units. It isn’t sure how quickly it will be able to completely replace coal.

“It’s just going to be a gradual process that you learn it every step of the way as you do this,” Durbin said.

FirstEnergy could qualify for renewable energy tax credits and renewable energy certificates for switching to biomass, he said. But the company also is making the move to keep up with current trends.

“As more and more states, and the federal government, enact these renewable requirements, utilities, including FirstEnergy, we need to start looking at ways we can meet those renewable requirements,” he said. “And this is a very exciting process for us. If it works as we think it’s going

FIRS TENERG Y CORP.

BIOMASS DEAL: Anthony J. Alexander, left, president and CEO of FirstEnergy, shakes hands with Ohio Governor Ted Strickland at the R.E. Burger Plant in Shadyside, Ohio, when the announcement was made that the company would retrofit the plant to burn biomass.

to work, it’ll be a great thing not just now, but in the future as, hopefully, what we do will allow other facilities to take advantage of the technology as well.”

Ohio has an advanced energy portfolio standard that requires 25% of the state’s energy be generated from advanced and re-

newable energy sources by 2025.

The organic material, which could be switchgrass or other biomass, is pulverized just like coal and blown into a boiler and ignited to a very high temperature to boil water to create steam to generate electricity.

But plants grown to be used as

biomass fuel can be a carbon sink that captures the same, if not more, carbon dioxide generated from burning the biomass, Durbin said. ■

Contact Waste & Recycling News reporter Joe Truini at 330-865-6166 or jtrui-ni@crain.com

Online directory connects

people to green products

By Chrissy Kadleck

You won’t find “Ecobly” in a dictionary but in a few mouse clicks you connect to a virtual site designed to be a national directory linking customers with green products such as toys, furniture and home décor made close to their homes.

The Web site, at www.ecobly.com, was launched in November by Kathleen Ridihalgh, a mother of two who

coined Ecobly (pronounced e’-ko-blee) and defines it as making products locally, sustainably and responsibly.

Ridihalgh, who has been engaged in the environmental field since 1994, said she came up with the idea of the Web site when she had trouble finding green items for her children and household that she could buy in Seattle.

“I started finding them at farmer’s markets and online but they were scattered all over the place and it was really, really difficult,” she said. “I just figured it needed to all be in one place if the consumers were ever going to be able to step up and start shopping locally and greenly.”

The site, which has more than 200 companies that represent thousands of products made in just about every state with mostly local, recycled ingredients.

“Many of the companies have come up with creative ways to

reclaim wood, juice pouches, old billboards — you name it — to make cool stuff we need every day,” she said. “This site rewards companies that are finding great uses for recycled raw materials. We want to make it easy for consumers to find these great products and create market demand for recycled content.”

Consumers can search the site and see what’s made in their zip code, city, state, or they can look at neighboring states and regions.

“The idea is that people will start learning what is made right there at home and hopefully start supporting those businesses,” said Ridihalgh, who re-searches and verifies the products meet what she calls the “Green Gold standard.” “There’s been a lot of research that shows when people are buying things made in their communities that it strengthens those local

economies.”

Basic listing on the site is free but a company can pay an annual membership fee to license the Ecobly logo and “get the benefit of being able to — right at the point of sale — show their customers that they are local and green,” she said.

“One of the reasons that having the Ecobly verification on a company’s advertising is so important, it gives consumers another factor to think about when they are making a decision,” she said. “They may be paying a little bit more for something but they know it’s going right back into their own community. Third-party verification is very valuable when consumers are making their decisions.”

Ridihalgh said she would love Ecobly to follow the same trajectory as local and organic foods.

“I would like to see Ecobly jewelry in Macy’s and Ecobly clothing at Nordstrom’s. Essentially what I am trying to do is make the idea of looking for locally made green products as mainstream as local food is now,” she said.

“If you’re buying most of your food locally, it doesn’t make sense to be importing unsustainable products for the whole rest of your life.” ■

Contact Waste & Recycling News correspondent Chrissy Kadleck at ckadleck@sbcglobal.net

EPA reveals plan to
reduce ship emissions

By Bruce Geiselman

U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa P.
Jackson unveiled a plan to reduce
ship emissions along the nation’s
coastline.

Jackson is asking the International Maritime Organization to create an emission control area within a 230-mile buffer zone of the nation’s coastline. The stricter standards would save as many as 8,300 American and Canadian lives annually by 2020, according to EPA estimates. Large ships, including oil tankers, would need to meet standards reducing their particulate matter emissions by 85% and nitrogen oxide emissions by 80% compared with current global requirements. In addition, the sulfur content of fuel the ships use would be reduced by 98%.

To achieve the reductions, ships would be required to use fuel with no more than 1,000 parts per emission of sulfur beginning in 2015, and new ships would need to use advanced emission control technologies beginning in 2016.

“This is an important and long overdue step in our efforts to protect the air and water along our shores and the health of the people in our coastal communities,” Jackson said.

The new standards would pro-
tect the economic strength of the
nation’s ports while protecting the
health of people in coastal com-
munities, she said.

U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who chairs the Senate environment committee, said the new standards would help address problems with higher rates of respiratory illnesses, including cancer, that have been identified among the population living in close proximity to ports.

“EPA’s announcement today is music to my ears because it means the United States is stepping forward to take a strong leadership role on clean air around ports,” Boxer said.

The International Maritime Organization, a United Nations agency, would need to approve the EPA’s plan because it regulates ocean ship pollution.

The Clean Air Task Force, a
nonprofit environmental advocacy
group, called for quick approval of
the plan.

“The EPA initiative would make the air much cleaner in port cities and coal areas and prevent thousands of premature deaths a year,” Marshall added.

However, Earthjustice, another environmental advocacy group, criticized the plan because it did not extend the protection of the buffer zone to Alaska’s Arctic waters. ■