NJ-based NRG and Covanta get road wins



Results in the New Jersey Environmental-Energy big leagues:

Princeton-based NRG Energy picks up road win in Texas

Environmental regulators in the Lone Star State have approved a draft permit to allow the energy company to build a $1.2 billion pulverized coal unit at its Limestone station near Jewett, some 120 miles northwest of Houston.

The Jersey team recorded the win over a scrappy team of environmental groups and some nearby property owners who are challenging the state’s air-permitting process, citing Texas’ ranking as the leading emitter of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas blamed for global warming.

In its last successful outing, NRG Energy acquired Bluewater Wind, the wind-energy company that hopes to install turbine farms off the coasts of Delaware and New Jersey.

Covanta scores win in South Carolina, loss in Connecticut

The Chester County Council gave initial approval this week to recommendations from the county’s planning and zoning boards to rezone 100 acres off S.C. 9 to allow Fairfield, NJ-based Covanta Energy to build a waste-to-energy plant near Fort Lawn, SC.

The project is expected to cost at least $500 million and create around 50 permanent jobs, along with related temporary jobs, said John Phillips, vice president of business development for Covanta, which operates more than 40 of these plants around the country. The project faces as second vote at a specially called meeting Friday, and a final vote in December.



Meanwhile, Covanta suffered a loss to the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection. Covanta has agreed to a settlement over an emissions violation discovered at the trash-to energy plant in Wallingford that Covanta operates for the Connecticut Resources Recovery Authority.

Instead of a fine, Covanta will pay $355,000 to the DEP to fund local recycling programs. The excess dioxin emissions were discovered during the plant’s annual performance test on May 23, 2007.

Dennis Schain, a DEP spokesman, said the dioxin violation was not severe enough to pose an immediate threat to public health. Covanta corrected the violation quickly and that the plant has not had any emission violations since, he said.

Related:

Texas issues draft permit for new NRG coal unit

Chester County incinerator would add jobs, millions in taxes

Covanta funds recycling effort to settle pollution case

Our latest posts:

Setting your own biodiesel blend in New Jersey

New Jersey sets new recycling grant record

Law firm trolling for Marcellus water cases

Radioactive news on Marcellus Shale water

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Setting your own biodiesel blend in New Jersey






Dixon Brothers, location on Cobb Street in Rockaway, is the first biodiesel retail fueling stations in Morris County–and one of only
two in New Jersey–where customers can set their own blend of conventional diesel fuel and a domestically produced, renewable soybean product.Daily Record writer Megan Van Dyk reports today that Jennifer and Sally Pierson, who are the fourth-generation family owners of the business, invested $25,000 to install a heated storage facility where the 100 percent bio is kept in a tank aside a diesel tank. Pipes leading to the self-serving pump outside mix the two fuels to the customer’s specifications–ranging from 2 percent bio to 20 percent bio.Biodiesel produces less pollution and improves the longevity of diesel engines because of improved lubrication, and it can be used in existing diesel engines without the need for modifications. For now, Dixon Brothers is offering its biodiesel at five cents more per gallon than regular diesel fuel, which Levitt admits can be a hard sell in this economy.The company is pitching its product to area municipalities alongside information about the state’s Biodiesel Fuel Rebate Program, which offers rebates to government entities for the price-per-gallon difference between biodiesel and regular diesel to fuel their fleet of construction vehicles, police cars and school buses.The first company in New Jersey to offer biodiesel was Maplewood-based Woolley Fuel, which opened its pump in December. Demand for biofuel is “one of the few things that has increased every month,” said Norman Woolley Jr., the company’s vice president.Related:
ChemrezTech earnings up on stronger biodiesel sales
Introduction of B2 blend improves company’s profits by 3%
NYC cooking oil fueling vehicles and buildings

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New Jersey sets new recycling grant record


The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is awarding $14.5 million in grants to boost local recycling efforts–nearly twice as much as last year’s $8 million and almost three times higher than the previous high of $5.5 million set in 1995.

What accounts for the difference?

The Recycling Enhancement Act, a law passed in 2008, which sets a $3-per-ton surcharge trash taken to disposal facilities in the state.

The law was enacted to provide municipalities and counties with more funds for recycling programs, including education and enforcement (the carrot and the stick).

The amount that each municipality is receiving this year is based on its respective recycling level in 2007, the last year for which official figures have been established.

The DEP reports that, in 2007, New Jersey:

  • Recycled 12.4 million tons of a total 21.6 million tons of solid waste, for an overall recycling rate of 57.3 percent. This includes all types of waste, including municipal solid waste as well as bulky waste such as construction and demolition debris, scrap metal and wood.
  • Of the total amount above, the state recycled 3.8 million tons of some 10.5 million tons of municipal solid waste, for a municipal solid waste recycling rate of 36.5 percent. Materials recycled as part of municipal programs includes paper, cardboard, glass, metal cans and plastic.

The expectation is that the additional funding will enable counties and towns to improve the state’s overall recycling numbers which have been on the decline in recent years.
The danger is that cash-starved municipalities will look to siphon off some of the recycling funds for other purposes. State law forbids such diversions, but the temptation will be there, making state-level auditing and other oversight practices more important than ever.

Our most recent posts:
Law firm trolling for Marcellus water cases
Delaware: First to sign and the first to spin?
Radioactive news on Marcellus Shale water
Enviros (and business) split over climate bill
Politics by the pound in New Jersey

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Law firm trolling for Marcellus water cases

Can the use of ‘fracking’ to extract natural gas in the Marcellus Shale region of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania pollute private wells?

A Texas-based law firm thinks it can and it’s actively searching for affected property owners to represent in law suits against drilling companies.

The Dr. Shezad Malik Law Firm in Southlake, TX is using its website to spread the word about George Zimmermann, the owner of 480 acres in Washington County, southwest Pennsylvania, who claims that Atlas Energy Inc. ruined his land with toxic chemicals used in or released there by hydraulic fracturing, also known as ‘fracking.’

The law firm’s web site reports:

“Water tests at three locations by gas wells on Zimmermann’s property –one is 1,500 feet from his home — found seven potentially carcinogenic chemicals above “screening levels” set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.”

“The gas is being extracted by hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”, in which a mixture of water, sand and chemicals is forced a mile or more underground at high pressure, fracturing the shale and causing the release of natural gas.

“In June, water tests found arsenic at 2,600 times acceptable levels, benzene at 44 times above limits and naphthalene five times the federal standard. Soil samples detected mercury and selenium above official limits, as well as ethylbenzene, a chemical used in drilling, and trichloroethene, a naturally occurring but toxic chemical that can be brought to the surface by gas drilling.

“Zimmermann’s suit, filed in September in the Washington County Court of Common Pleas, follows claims by residents in many gas-drilling areas of the United States that fracking pollutes private water wells with toxic chemicals and threatens widespread contamination of aquifers from which many rural households draw drinking water.”

Should anyone miss the point of the reportorial exercise, the law firm ends with the following paragraph:

“If you or a family member has been injured because of the fault of someone else; by negligence, personal injury, slip and fall, car accident, medical malpractice, trucking accident, drunk driving, dangerous drugs, bad product, toxic injury etc then please contact the Dallas Fort Worth Texas Toxic Injury Attorney Dr. Shezad Malik. For a no obligation, free case analysis, please call 817-255-4001 or Contact Me Online.“

For a more robust, and perhaps less self-interested report on Mr. Zimmerman’s case, we recommend the Reuters news story Pennsylvania lawsuit says drilling polluted water

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Related:
DEC extends Public Comment period for Marcellus Shale
Pipelines a must for Marcellus drilling to take place
State files show 270 drilling accidents in past 30 years
New York proposes Marcellus Shale drilling rules
Bad economy? Not in the Marcellus Shale

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Delaware: First to sign and the first to spin?

The little state of Delaware’s primary claim to fame for the last 222 years has been that it was the first of the original 13 states to ratify the U.S. Constitution. Today it wants to make history again by becoming the first state to get some of its electric energy from offshore wind turbines.

Delaware’s chances of pulling off that modern-day coup improved with Monday’s announcement that Princeton, NJ-based NRG Energy has acquired Bluewater Wind, the wind energy development company that plans to construct a wind farm of 60 or more turbines some 13 miles off the coast of Rehoboth Beach.

NRG Energy brings a new source of critically needed financial backing to the project which has been underfunded since Bluewater’s original owner, Babcock and Brown, ran into financial difficulty. See: Will NRG save Bluewater’s wind projects?

The project is estimated to cost about $1.2 billion with the first turbines possibly erected around 2014.

NRG says current Bluewater president Peter Mandelstam will continue to lead the company and work would continue on designing other projects along the coast, including one envisioned off the coast of Atlantic City, NJ. All of Bluewater’s existing development team will become NRG employees, working out of Bluewater’s office in Hoboken, NJ.

Bluewater said the next step for the Rehoboth project is to install a meteorological tower off the coast to collect data needed for further design. Installation will likely take place during the summer of 2010.

A new, tri-state wind-energy partnership

Yesterday, Delaware Gov. Jack Markell, who is eager to claim bragging rights as the first state in the nation to develop an offshore wind farm, joined with Gov. Martin O’Malley of Maryland and Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia in announcing a tri-state partnership for the deployment of off shore wind energy in the Mid-Atlantic coastal region.

The three states signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) creating “a formal partnership that will build on the region’s significant offshore wind resources to generate clean, renewable energy and a sustainable market that will bring new economic opportunities.”

A press release announcing the MOU says that immediate tasks are ” to identify common transmission strategies for offshore wind energy deployment in the region, discuss ways to encourage sustainable market demand for this renewable resource and work collaboratively in pursuing federal energy policies which help advance offshore wind in the Mid-Atlantic area.”

The MOU also calls for “examination of ways to coordinate regional supply chain facilities to secure supply, deployment, and operations and maintenance functions to support offshore wind energy facilities.”

Collaboration on strategies to utilize academic institutions to create standards and opportunities for training and workforce development will also be developed, as will a joint lobbying approach with such federal entities such as the Minerals Management Service, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and the Department of Defense.

Related:
NRG purchases Bluewater Wind
Bluewater Wind is now an NRG company
Rehoboth Wind Farm on Track Despite New Owner
Wind energy out to hook fishing industry support
Will TX beat NJ and NY to offshore wind energy?

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Radioactive news on Marcellus Shale water

“As New York gears up for a massive expansion of gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale, state officials have made a potentially troubling discovery about the wastewater created by the process: It’s radioactive. And they have yet to say how they’ll deal with it.”

So reports Pro Publica, the investigative journalism organization that, in a series of reports, has raised questions about the environmental impacts of the use of hydraulic fracturing to release and capture natural gas deposits in the Marcellus Shale.

The latest news comes from New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation, “which analyzed 13 samples of wastewater brought thousands of feet to the surface from drilling
and found that they contain levels of radium-226, a derivative of uranium, as high as 267 times the limit safe for discharge into the environment and thousands of times the limit safe for people to drink.”

The findings could have a significant effect on the cost of drilling operations, which have been on hold in New York as the state develops specific regulations to address natural gas drilling.

If the findings are backed up with additional tests, Pro Publica predicts:

“The energy industry would likely face stiffer regulations and expenses, and have more trouble finding treatment plants to accept its waste — if any would at all. Companies would need to license their waste handlers and test their workers for radioactive exposure, and possibly ship waste across the country. And the state would have to sort out how its laws for radioactive waste might apply to drilling and how the waste could impact water supplies and the environment.”

In Pennsylvania, where no similar regulatory review has been imposed by state government, drilling operations are moving ahead in high gear.

“Susquehanna County is inundated with drilling, fracking, water trucks, residual waste trucks and more companies coming in,” County Commissioner MaryAnn Warren told the Centre Daily Times. “People are going to get rich, but I am worried about our natural resources.”

Stephen Rhoads, president of the Pennsylvania Oil and Gas Association, said Wednesday that the Marcellus “play” in Pennsylvania is still in its infancy. He said the limited permitting and drilling statistics compiled to date are not sufficient to show a trend, although he expected to see an increase in the number of permits and the number of wells drilled.

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