The Impact of Ambient Air Quality Rules on Power
Plants is the Subject of the Hot Topic Hour on Thursday December 15, 2011 at
10:00 am CST
The utility industry is preparing to deal with the Utility MACT due to be
promulgated soon and the Cross State Air Pollution (transport) Rule (CSAPR) but
the real driver for their pollution control strategy may well be the National
Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS). The states are now in the process of
finalizing and beginning implementation of their SIP’s required to meet the
NAAQS. The NAAQS regulations establish standards for CO, lead, NO2,
ozone, particulate matter and SO2 all of which (except perhaps CO and
lead) can have a significant impact on current or planned facilities combusting
fossil fuels to generate electricity. But it may well be the NAAQS PM2.5
standard that will ultimately trump all other rules in terms of efficiency
requirements for scrubbers, SCRs and particulate control equipment.
One ton of SO2 reacts to form 13 billion micrograms of sulfates, so
just one ton of SO2 emissions will cause nearly 1 billion cubic feet
of ambient air to exceed the ambient limit. When the States review the inventory
of SO2 emissions they will quickly determine that requiring an
increase in SO2 efficiency at power plants to 99 percent will be the
most cost effective and certainly most politically acceptable approach. In the
Western States, it is nitrates not sulfates that are the biggest contributor to
PM2.5 in the air. So the same analogy holds for SCR efficiency.
Although fossil-fueled power plants are not the only
sources of NOx, SO2 and PM2.5 emissions, they
are a major source and are seen as perhaps the easiest source to control. They
will therefore, most certainly face state regulations requiring greater
reductions of PM2.5 particulates as well as the ozone precursor NOx
and SO2. Outlawing all barbecues will be unpalatable compared
to additional reductions in utility power plant emissions, and industrial
boilers will be next highest on the hit list.
The following speakers will discuss the problems that will be faced by operators
of fossil- fueled power plants as a result of the NAAQS for PM2.5, SO2,
NO2 and ozone and suggest possible solutions or strategies and
courses of action for utilities to consider short of plant closure to deal with
these regulations.
Robert Paine,
Director Technical Environment at AECOM, will discuss the “Challenges
for Modeling Compliance with Short-term NO2 and PM2.5
Ambient Standards.” EPA’s strict ambient standards for NO2 and
PM2.5 provide a host of implementation challenges regarding the
application of dispersion models to assess compliance. Due to the shrinking
margin of compliance associated with these new standards, the skill of
regulatory models such as AERMOD is more severely tested, and refined methods to
incorporate background concentrations and deal with the need to model numerous
background emission sources will need to be developed. This presentation reviews
the issues and provides recommendations for refined compliance assessment
approaches.
Mr. Gale F. Hoffnagle,
CCM, QEP, Senior Vice-President and Technical Director, Air Quality Consulting
Practice Manager at TRC Environmental Corporation.
John Kinsman,
Senior Director Environment at Edison Electric Institute.
To register for this “Hot Topic Hour” on Thursday, December15, 2011 at 10:00
a.m. CST, click on:
http://www.mcilvainecompany.com/brochures/hot_topic_hour_registration.htm.
----------
Here are the Headlines for the December 2, 2011 – Utility E Alert
UTILITY E-ALERT
#1052 – December 2, 2011
Table
of Contents
COAL – US
COAL – WORLD
GAS / OIL – US
GAS / OIL – WORLD
CO2
NUCLEAR
BUSINESS
HOT TOPIC HOUR
§
Upcoming Hot Topic Hours
For more information on the Utility Environmental
Upgrade Tracking System, click on:
http://www.mcilvainecompany.com/brochures/energy.html#42ei.
----------
Large Potential for Biogas Energy
Biogas projects represent a win-win situation. Not only are pollutants removed
but energy is created.
A variety of materials can be used to produce biogas. These projects are tracked
in McIlvaine’s Renewable Update and Projects.
Veolia Environment North America (VENA) held a ribbon-cutting ceremony to mark
the commencement of operations for its new landfill gas-to-energy project
(LFGTE) at the Veolia ES Hickory Meadows Landfill, located at Hilbert in eastern
Wisconsin. State, community and business leaders gathered at the project site to
recognize the environmental and economic benefits of the project for the state
of Wisconsin.
This project represents a comprehensive, beginning-to-end environmental solution
that begins with the collection of solid waste, continues with the land-filling
process and decomposition of matter, progresses through the collection of
landfill gas, and ends with the efficient production of clean energy for use by
the local utility.
The Hickory Meadows landfill gas-to-energy project has the capacity to generate
42,000 megawatt hours (MHz) of renewable electricity per year, enough to power
2,800 Wisconsin homes. The renewable power facility features three landfill
reciprocating engine generator sets with a capacity of 1.6 MW each, fueled
exclusively by the landfill gas.
The gas, which consists of about 50 percent methane and 50 percent carbon
dioxide, is naturally generated through the anaerobic decomposition of organic
material in a landfill. At the site, the gas had previously been captured and
flared off by the site in a controlled manner. With the addition of the plant,
the gas is distributed via the landfill’s existing gas collection system to the
renewable power facility, where liquid and particulate matter is removed. The
landfill gas is then injected into the internal combustion engines to produce
environmentally clean electric power, while also reducing greenhouse gas
emissions.
*****
RWE is planning to erect a 7.4-MW biogas plant in Bergheim Paffendorf. RWE
Innogy will build and operate the plant, and RWE Power will be responsible for
resource management. Through its opencast mine reclamation activities, the
company has developed a high level of competence in the agricultural sector. To
supply the plant, a wide range of raw materials including maize and whole crop
silage, sugar beet and alfalfa as well as liquid manure will be used. Some of
the raw materials will come from the areas surrounding the open cast mines. The
majority of the raw materials, however, will be supplied by regional farmers.
The raw biogas produced in the Paffendorf plant will be upgraded to natural gas
quality, fed into the natural gas network as biomethane and be supplied to CHP
plants in the region. The total investment amounts to around €13 million.
*****
FlexEnergy Inc., a clean tech company with a process to generate clean energy
with near-zero emissions, has selected MISCOwater + energy, a leading integrator
of clean energy generation systems, as its sales representative in the municipal
wastewater environment in the western United States. The two companies will
promote systems that generate renewable energy for on-site use at municipal
wastewater treatment plants, using methane from anaerobic digesters as fuel.
Ideal for wastewater treatment plants and other sources of biogas, FlexEnergy’s
Flex Powerstation™ FP250 uses digester gas as fuel to generate electricity and
useful heat while destroying methane, a harmful source of greenhouse gases. The
Flex Powerstation™ FP250 uses an advanced thermal oxidizer to destroy methane
from digesters using its unique ability to operate reliably within a target
temperature range that is high enough to destroy volatile organic compounds
(VOCs) and carbon monoxide (CO), yet low enough to prevent the formation of
oxides of nitrogen (NOx). This one of a kind operating environment
allows the Flex Powerstation™ FP250 to meet all current and planned state and
federal air quality regulations. An optional heat recovery system can be used to
create the industry’s only integrated single-platform package for combined heat
and power to optimize digester temperatures and boost overall energy efficiency.
For more information on Renewable Energy Projects and Update
please visit
http://www.mcilvainecompany.com/brochures/Renewable_Energy_Projects_Brochure/renewable_energy_projects_brochure.htm
----------
You can register for our free McIlvaine Newsletters at:
http://www.mcilvainecompany.com/brochures/Free_Newsletter_Registration_Form.htm.
Bob McIlvaine
President
847-784-0012 ext 112
rmcilvaine@mcilvainecompany.com
www.mcilvaine@mcilvainecompany.com
Copyright © 2011 McIlvaine Company. All Rights Reserved
191 Waukegan Road Suite 208 | Northfield | IL 60093
Ph: 847-784-0012 | Fax: 847-784-0061
Click
here to un-subscribe from this mailing list