POWER July 2016 - 61

FUELS
Maryland Rejects New Baltimore Waste-to-Energy Plant
Maryland has traditionally been friendly toward turning trash into
electricity, and the Northeast Maryland Waste Disposal Authority,
a quasi-governmental group aimed at helping Maryland communities
meet their waste disposal needs, has long been an advocate
of waste-to-energy (WTE) projects.
Cars driving into Baltimore from I-95 and the BaltimoreWashington
Parkway for over 30 years have seen a large stack,
originally bearing the letters " BRESCO " down its side and, more
recently, " BALTIMORE " (Figure 4). That's the exhaust stack for a
large WTE plant, commissioned in 1985, now operated by Wheelabrator
Technologies, and long a target of environmental activists
for alleged air pollution problems. The project has survived multiple
environmental reviews over three decades.
A small WTE project in Harford County, north of Baltimore near
the Department of Defense's (DOD's) Aberdeen Proving Ground,
closed down last March when its lease with the DOD expired and
the Pentagon chose not to renew it. The plant began operations
in 1988 and attracted little local notice.
At about the same time as the Harford County plant's lease expired,
a proposal for another large Baltimore WTE project, years in
the works, collapsed. The Baltimore Sun reported that the Maryland
Department of the Environment told developer Energy Answers International
of Albany, N.Y., that a 2010 permit for a project in south
Baltimore's Curtis Bay neighborhood was no longer valid.
The project would have been the largest in the U.S., converting
some 4,000 tons of solid waste per day into 160 MW of baseload capacity.
The project drew opposition from local activists, who claimed
that the plant would harm schools and parks in the neighborhood,
as well as homes in the area. Opponents said the project would be
a prodigious producer of oxides of nitrogen and particulate pollution,
although the plant would have met all federal Environmental
Protection Agency NOx
and particulate emissions standards.
Baltimore activist Destiny Watford last April won a $175,000
" Goldman Environmental Prize " for organizing community opposition
to the WTE project, along with kudos from New York Times environment
blogger Andy Revkin. The citation read, " Curtis Bay is
a highly industrialized community in south Baltimore with a history
of displacing people to make room for oil refineries, chemical
plants, sewage treatment plants, and other facilities that emit
pollution. Those left to live within breathing distance of industry
The company, based in Houston, said its recycling
division posted a $16 million loss in
the first quarter of 2015, and it has shut 10 of
its largest recycling facilities. The Washington
Post article concluded, " A storm of falling
oil prices, a strong dollar and a weakened
economy in China have sent prices for American
recyclables plummeting wordwide. "
On top of that, low natural gas prices have
driven down the wholesale price generators
of electric power can reap in competitive
markets. " Natural gas is a big driver of wasteto-energy
economics, lowering the price for
wholesale power, " Michaels said. The global
economic crash of 2008 also slowed the econJuly
2016 | POWER
have long suffered from respiratory problems such as asthma and
lung cancer. In fact, a 2013 study on emissions-related mortality
rates found Baltimore to be the deadliest city, with 130 out of
every 100,000 residents likely to die each year from long-term
exposure to air pollution. "
Ted Michaels of the Energy Recovery Council had a different
take on the events in Baltimore. He told POWER that cancellation
of the 2010 state license for the Curtis Bay project came because
the developer hadn't lived up to the terms of the permit. " Maryland
withdrew the permit because not enough construction activity
had occurred. The terms of the permit had been violated, " he
said. The Baltimore Sun reported that state environmental regulators
concluded that the developers of the project had not met the
permit requirements for " continuous construction. "
Are activists' objections to mass-burn technologies technically
valid? In the online news site Huffington Post, science writer
Shawn Lawrence Otto wrote, " Today's waste-to-energy (WTE)
plants are not your granddaddy's trash burners. . . . Some liberal
groups, like the Center for American Progress, are starting to
look at the actual science and reevaluating long-held assumptions
in light of new information and increasing concern over climate
change. When they do, they are finding that today's waste-toenergy
plants look surprisingly good for the environment and for
fighting climate change. "
omy, drove down electricity demand, and cut
into the price of recycled commodities.
The Environmental Debate
Environmental opposition also burdens WTE
plants. Fervent opponents of the projects assert
that incinerating waste produces dangerous
levels of airborne pollutants such as dioxins
and heavy metals, and that the resulting ash is
hazardous. In Minnesota, three local groups-
the Sierra Club, the Minnesota Public Interest
Research Group, and Neighborhoods Organizing
for Change-are trying to shut down the
Hennepin Energy Recovery Center in Minneapolis,
claiming it harms the environment,
www.powermag.com
according to the Waste Dive online newsletter.
The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission
continues to back the project. The state has
nine WTE plants, the most in the region.
Claims about harms from waste incineration
and energy recovery are based on outdated
data, according to the industry and
government regulators. The EPA has given
both air emissions and ash toxicity a green
light. In addition to reducing landfill methane
emissions, proponents claim, WTE projects
reduce CO2
emissions by shipping waste to
incinerators by rail, a less-energy intensive
and less-transportation intrusive approach
than trucks hauling trash to landfills.
61
4. Trash power plant target of trash talk. This Maryland
waste-to-energy plant has been the target of environmentalists'
claims that it causes pollution, though it has survived three
decades of environmental reviews. Courtesy: Wheelabrator
http://www.powermag.com
POWER July 2016

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