Power Air Quality Insights No

				Power Air Quality Insights No. 41 February 2, 2012

WELCOME

The following insights can be sent to you every week. This alert contains the details on the upcoming hot topic hour, breaking news, and the headlines for the Utility E Alert for the previous week. This is one of a number of free services. You can sign up for any of these newsletters and of course request to be removed from the mailing list at any time. See registration following the newsletter.

· “Hot Topic Hour” on February 9, 2012 is “Implementation of the MACT Rule”

“Hot Topic Hour” on February 9, 2012 is “Implementation of the MACT Rule”

As you know on December 21, 2011, the U.S. EPA released the final “Utility MACT” rule establishing mercury and air toxics standards for coal-and oil-fired electric generating units (EGU) larger than 25 MW. All existing EGUs will have three years to comply with the standards although the rule allows states to grant specific units an additional year for equipment installation.

Many persons in the utility industry and others are concerned that the time frame for achieving compliance and the cost of compliance will force utilities to shut down many EGUs and cause serious issues with the reliability of electric supply. To mitigate these concerns, EPA put a “safety valve” provision in the rule that could allow some EGUs that are not able to install equipment for compliance up to five years to achieve compliance. But the operator of an EGU will not know if EPA will grant an extension until far down the road.

The publication of this rule raises many serious questions for the utility industry. What is the best strategy to adopt? Will legal challenges delay or soften the rule? What do we need to do to comply while maintaining our power supply commitments? Can we achieve compliance in this short time frame and at which plants? What is the most economic solution for our investors or ratepayers?

The following speakers will address the impact of the Utility MACT on coal-and oil-fueled power plant operators such as legal issues related to not achieving compliance in time, cost implications and power reliability issues, as well as the key issues to be considered when developing a strategy to achieve compliance, control technologies and equipment that can be utilized to achieve the emissions limits imposed by the MACT.

William (Bill) C Campbell, III, Vice President and Senior Program Manager at AECOM, has provided professional services to Utility clients to assist their management teams in assessing and understanding the impacts of the new EGU MACT rules, released on December 21, 2011, on the fleet of Utility units. His presentation will address the major implication of the rule on coal-fired boilers and using the available options in the revised rule, the technical solutions to maintain compliance for existing units.

Kevin Crosby, Technical Director at The Avogadro Group, LLC and Brian Higgins, Vice-President for Technology at Nalco Mobotec, Inc, will discuss the MACT/MAT rule, complicating factors, CSAPR coordination and considerations for developing a timely compliance strategy.

James "Buzz" Reynolds, Vice-President of Wet ESP Technology at Siemens Environmental Systems and Service, will present "Utility MACT PM Control with WESP Technology as an Alternative to a Fabric Filter." Those coal-fired power plants with wet FGD already installed should consider a WESP in lieu of a fabric filter as a way to meet the Utility MACT standards plus future PM_2.5regulations. The WESP offers a compact, high removal, low maintenance and pressure drop option vs. a fabric filter plus provides additional emission capture to any upset in the WFGD.

To register for the Hot Topic Hour on February 9, 2012 at 10 a.m. (central time), click on:

Many of you talked with us at the EUEC conference earlier this week. In fact some of you are among the 100 people whose picture was captured at the podium or at your stand. The pictures show up in our Global Knowledge Orchard under EUEC. They show up in the Orchard under the person and company name as well. They will also appear in publications such as this Insights and our other Newsletters and Alerts.

You may ask: Why make this effort? The reason is that the one aspect lacking in the digital world we are creating is the human contact. These pictures are a small bridge to fill that gap.

There was a great deal of information provided to the attendees by 600 speakers. The problem is that no one, including the assistant administrator of EPA, was able to eliminate the confusion relative to the specific near-term requirements. With the intervention of the courts and continuing rule changes, none of the utilities want to invest a lot of capital. The result is that low capital costs/high operating costs options are being put into play. Our Utility-E Alert being issued tomorrow will have lots of specific details.

§ EPA Administrator to Address EUEC 2012 on Mercury Standards Affecting 1,400 Power Plants

§ URS Awarded Contract for SBS Injection Technology on 2x650 MW Boilers at Pleasants, WV

§ FirstEnergy to Retire Six Coal-fired Power Plants

§ Pöyry Awarded Owner's Engineering Services Contract for the Shoaiba II Power Plant in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

§ Greenhouse Gas Regs for Power Plants Will Not be Finalized until After 2012 Elections

§ BOC Joins Drax-Alstom Alliance for Oxy-Fuel CCS Project in the UK

NUCLEAR

Worldwide sales of fabric filter systems will be just under $6 billion according to the latest forecast in World Fabric Filter and Element Market published by the McIlvaine Company (www.mcilvainecompany.com).

The stone and cement and industry will continue to lead the way with purchases of nearly $2 billion.

The utility industry will be a minor purchaser this year but will become a leading sector next year. New air toxic rules in the U.S. require coal-fired generators to meet low particulate emission levels. EPA predicts that up to 100 fabric filters will be needed to meet these regulations. The cost of the average fabric filter system when installed will be in excess of $40 million. The $4 billion expenditure would be spread out over the 2013-15 period.

China will be the biggest purchaser in part because of its very large cement industry. It is also the largest producer of steel.

In addition to the systems, plants will spend $2.4 billion for replacement bags and cartridges. Bags are replaced every 3-5 years in most applications. Bags for high temperature applications will cost up to ten times as much as those for low temperature service. Membranes with non-woven substrates are gaining market share over conventional needle felt composition.

McIlvaine’s Renewable Energy Projects and Update covers the very active biomass field. Just a few examples from a recent update follow.

Southern Company has received its first fuel load delivery November 1 at the Nacogdoches Generating Facility owned by its subsidiary Southern Power in eastern Texas. The plant is the largest biomass facility in the United States. This facility fulfills a 20-year contract to provide electric capacity to Austin Energy.

In October 2009, Southern Company purchased the project from American Renewables. The project has been under construction since November 2009 and will be operational in mid-2012. Southern Company expects to employ approximately 38 full-time employees once the plant is constructed and, at peak construction, expects approximately 1,000 workers onsite. Once the facility is fully operational, it will produce 100 MW of electricity and use 1.1 million tons of wood waste per year. The vast majority of the wood will come from within a 75-mile radius of the plant.

The Gainesville Renewable Energy Center (GREC), a 100-MW biomass power project located in Gainesville, FL, held a groundbreaking ceremony in October to commemorate the start of construction.

Opening the proceedings, Jim Gordon, President of GREC said, “I’d like to highlight the favorable economic impact that this facility will have, and in fact is already having, in this community. Florida’s unemployment rate is in the double digits and Alachua County’s is over 9 percent. In this tough economic environment, GREC is creating new jobs and keeping current workers employed. GREC began construction in March, and is already employing over 235 workers at the site today. This number will rise to nearly 900 as construction activities accelerate. Once GREC is operational, it will spend approximately $30 million per year buying wood from the surrounding region. This money will support the forestry industry, including landowners, loggers, truckers and others. In these challenging economic times, I’m proud to say that GREC is doing its part to stimulate economic activity in the region and put folks to work.”

GREC LLC has a 30-year contract with Gainesville Regional Utilities (GRU) to sell all of the electricity from the facility to the utility. The 100-MW biomass plant will be fueled by clean wood waste that includes the tops and limbs from harvested trees, urban wood waste from landscaping contractors and power line/roadway clearance contractors, and residue from lumber mill operations.

Enviva LP, a leading manufacturer of processed biomass fuel in the United States and Europe, announced that it has signed a contract with Richmond, VA-based Dominion Virginia Power, one of the U.S.’s largest energy producers, to supply biomass to two power facilities in southeast Virginia.

In April, Dominion announced plans to convert three 63 MW coal-burning peaking plants to 50 MW continuous power plants using biomass. Enviva will supply two of these plants, located in Southampton and Hopewell, VA. Biomass fuel provided by Enviva is a renewable alternative to fossil fuels. Dominion’s application to convert the power stations is pending before the Virginia State Corporation Commission.

The Government of Saskatchewan, SaskPower and the First Nations Power Authority (FNPA) are working with the Meadow Lake Tribal Council (MLTC) to develop a renewable power generation project in northern Saskatchewan.

The biomass project, known as the Meadow Lake Bioenergy Centre, will use wood by-products from the NorSask Forest Products mill near Meadow Lake to generate up to 36 MW of renewable, low-emissions power for the province of Saskatchewan.

SaskPower and MLTC signed a letter of intent and are now working on mutually-agreeable terms for a 25-year power purchase agreement, which is expected to be completed by the end of this year. The project is scheduled to be in service in early 2014.

In addition to adding more renewable electricity to the province’s power system, the baseload generation project will create about 300 new jobs in the Meadow Lake region, including 25 permanent jobs at the facility.

VIASPACE Inc., a clean energy company growing Giant King™ Grass as a low-carbon, renewable biomass crop and its subsidiary VIASPACE Green Energy Inc., reported that Biomass power plant provider DP CleanTech announced that it has been contracted to convert an ageing coal-fired power plant to operate on biomass. This conversion is being performed for TPK Ethanol of Thailand that is building a plant to convert cassava (tapioca) into 1,000,000 liters of bioethanol per day. The bioethanol plant requires both electricity and steam from the biomass boiler. In the press release by DP CleanTech, wood waste is identified as the primary fuel source, and Giant King Grass is cited as an alternative.

Eastern Illinois University (EIU) and Honeywell unveiled the school’s Renewable Energy Center (REC), one of the largest university biomass installations in the country, as part of a grand opening ceremony held on campus for students, faculty and the broader Charleston community.

The REC is a 19,000-square-foot steam plant that will provide heat for buildings and classrooms across the university grounds. It is driven by two large biomass gasifiers — the first application of this technology in Illinois and the surrounding region — that use wood chips from forest residue for fuel.

To heat the campus, a material-handling system at the plant delivers wood chips to the biomass gasifiers where they are broken down in a heated, oxygen-deprived chamber, creating a synthetic gas that burns similar to natural gas. The gas is then used to fire high-efficiency boilers, which results in more complete combustion and lower emissions, and gives EIU a carbon-neutral solution for heating its facilities.

The gasifiers will consume an estimated 27,000 tons of wood per year, replacing the more than 10,000 tons of coal burned annually by EIU’s existing plant, which will be decommissioned and repurposed for other university needs.

The REC also features a back-pressure turbine that is powered by superheated steam from one of the boilers to generate electricity, as well as two ground-mounted solar arrays. The turbine and arrays will provide other sources of renewable energy for the university and generate almost 3 million kilowatt-hours of electricity per year.

§ FirstEnergy to Retire Six Coal-fired Power Plants

§ Greenhouse Gas Regs for Power Plants Will Not be Finalized until After 2012 Elections

§ BOC Joins Drax-Alstom Alliance for Oxy-Fuel CCS Project in the UK

NUCLEAR