Nat Hamilton/WHYY
Philadelphia Energy Solutions is the largest oil refining complex on the Eastern seaboard and is the city’s largest source of air pollutants. The refinery announced a deal this month RNG Energy Solutions to host a commercial biogas facility. Nat Hamilton/WHYY
Catalina Jaramillo reports for StateImpact:
Making energy out of trash has great environmental appeal. Yet last week’s announcement that a commercial biogas plant is planned for 22 acres at the Philadelphia Energy Solutions refinery complex in South Philadelphia — already considered the largest source of particulate emissions in the city — has tempered the local environmental community’s enthusiasm.
According to RNG Energy Solutions, developer of the proposed $120 million plant, it will have the potential to turn 1,100 tons of commercial food waste from the Philadelphia region that otherwise would be burned or sent to landfills into 22,000 to 24,000 gallons (3,000 dekatherms) of renewable natural gas daily, using anaerobic digesters.
RNG Energy president James Potter told StateImpact the agreement isn’t a Philadelphia Energy Solutions investment or even a partnership: RNG Energy will enter into a long-term site lease with PES, and the refinery will pay for the biogas plant’s total renewable natural-gas production.
Further details of the contracts were not revealed. According to the city, the facility would receive no public financial assistance, although it will be eligible for state and local tax credits because it would be located within a Keystone Opportunity Zone.
Clean-air advocates, environmental activists, and city officials said they needed more information about the potential environmental impact of the Point Breeze Renewable Energy facility before making judgments.
“Overall, it’s positive,” said Christine Knapp, director of the city’s Office of Sustainability.
Philadelphia needs renewable-energy sources to meet its clean-energy and carbon-reduction goals — Mayor Jim Kenney recently confirmed its pledge to meet a 100 percent clean-energy goal as part of the city’s clean energy vision plan to reduce emissions 80 percent by 2050. Natural gas from the RNG Energy facility could potentially fuel both the city’s and SEPTA’s fleet. Decomposition of organic material in landfills liberates carbon dioxide and large amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas roughly 30 times more effective in trapping heat in the atmosphere than CO2.
“[But] we want to make sure that it’s done appropriately, taking into consideration the neighbors and respecting their concerns. We also want to make sure that it does fit in with our carbon and energy goals — which it does look like it aligns, but there’s still more research we have to do to make sure it does,” Knapp said.
Matt Walker, advisory director of the Clean Air Council, a nonprofit that has continuously opposed PES, said that residents need more information about the project, and that state and city agencies must give them the opportunity to engage in the permitting and decision-making process.
