This is great work. I’d like to
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 Tapping the furnace at Eramet. WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. EPA is considering stronger pollution limits on the toxic air pollutants from manganese refinery Eramet Marietta Incorporated and similar sources. These emissions include manganese, lead, hydrochloric acid, mercury, nickel, arsenic, chromium, and others. The U.S. EPA has recognized that these pollutants create a high health risk for people who live within 50 km of the Eramet plant, including cancer and chronic central nervous system damage. The U.S. EPA estimates its proposal would reduce lifetime cancer risk based on actual emissions by 94%, reduce the risk of chronic effects to the nervous system by 98%, and reduce the acute health risk by 97%. This agency rule review comes after Sierra Club and legal group Earthjustice brought a lawsuit for failure to review the rule on a previously established schedule. Under the leadership of Administrator Lisa Jackson, the U.S. EPA agreed to review, propose and finalize a rule by June 2012. If approved, the new rules would go into effect by June of 2014. The public is invited to comment on the proposed rule change.
All comments must be submitted no later than this Tuesday, January 31, 2012.
Proposed changes:
- Set specific pollution limits for mercury and other air pollutants from ferroalloys sources for the first time
- Set stricter limits on emissions of metal particles
- Require enclosure of the furnace buildings to reduce the amount of fugitive emissions (leaks)
To make a comment, send an email with the subject line “Attn: Docket ID Number EPA-HQ-OAR-2010-0895 – Ferroalloys Comment”.
— Melissa English, Development Director, Ohio Citizen Action.
 CINCINNATI — Cincinnati Enquirer reporter Jane Prendergast is soliciting feedback from city residents about whether they recycle more, after having received larger recycling carts as part of the city’s improved curbside recycling program. It has been a year since most residents traded in their 18 gallon bins for 64 or 96 gallon wheeled carts with radio frequency identifier chips to track tons recycled by household. City of Cincinnati Office of Environmental Quality Director Larry Falkin reported that 71% of the city’s households were recycling by the end of 2011, up from 40% before the carts were distributed. This led to recovery of 17% of the city’s waste stream, and a savings of $930,731over the old program.
– Melissa K. English, Development Director, Ohio Citizen Action
FirstEnergy: Upgrades to comply with air, water standards not worth cost
 FirstEnergy Corp. plans to shut down three of Bay Shore's four generators in Oregon by Sept. 1. CHICAGO, IL — “Closing the Lake Erie plants also could benefit commercial and sport fishing. By sucking up massive amounts of water to cool its equipment, the Bay Shore plant near Toledo, Ohio, killed 46 million adult fish and more than 2.4 billion eggs, larvae and young fish every year in the region’s most prolific spawning grounds, according to reports submitted to Ohio regulators.
FirstEnergy is closing three coal-fired units at Bay Shore by September but will keep operating a smaller unit that burns petroleum waste from a nearby BP refinery. As a result, the plant’s daily water withdrawals are expected to drop by more than 80 percent.
‘At a time when the lake is challenged by algae blooms and declining fish populations, this is a huge step in the right direction,’ said Sandy Bihn, Lake Erie representative for Waterkeeper, an environmental group that pressured FirstEnergy to reduce its water withdrawals.
All the coal units will be shut at five other plants: Ashtabula, Eastlake and Lake Shore in Ohio, Armstrong in Pennsylvania and R. Paul Smith in Maryland. Combined, the plants generated about 10 percent of the company’s electricity and generally operated only during peak summer demand.”
— Michael Hawthorne, Chicago Tribune
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Tighter regulation, bountiful natural gas and declining installation costs for renewable energy herald the end of America’s coal era
 HARLAN COUNTY, KY — “But if the raw numbers look good, the trends tell a different story. Regulatory uncertainty and the emergence of alternative fuel sources (natural gas and renewables) will probably make America’s future far less coal-reliant than its past. In 2000 America got 52% of its electricity from coal; in 2010 that number was 45%. Robust as exports are, they account for less than one-tenth of American mined coal; exports cannot pick up the slack if America’s taste for coal declines. Appalachian coal production peaked in the early 1990s; the EIA forecasts a decline for the next three years, followed by two decades of low-level stability. Increased employment and declining productivity suggest that Appalachian coal is getting harder to find.
Toughening regulation has an effect, too. Coal-fired power plants are the source of more than one-third of greenhouse-gas emissions in America. Last July the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a rule that requires 28 states to reduce the amount of sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide they emit; in December came another, reducing the amount of mercury and other toxic air pollutants that power plants can puff out.
…The EIA forecasts that America will still obtain 39% of its energy from coal by 2035, but that assumes a consistent regulatory framework. Other sources are less sanguine. Deutsche Bank predicts that coal’s share will fall to 20% by 2030 as regulatory risk grows, with natural gas and renewables rising. That seems more likely. The EPA’s new emissions rules may have been stayed by the courts, but they loom nonetheless, hampering investment in coal.
The switch away from it will be painful for some. But as Robert Byrd, the late senator from West Virginia, once said, coal-dependent regions ‘can choose to anticipate change and adapt to it, or resist and be overrun by it.’”
— The Economist
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Plants Located in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maryland
AKRON — “FirstEnergy Corp. (NYSE: FE) announced today that its generation subsidiaries will retire six older coal-fired power plants located in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maryland by September 1, 2012. The decision to close the plants is based on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS), which were recently finalized, and other environmental regulations.
The total capacity of the competitive plants that will be retired is 2,689 megawatts (MW). Recently, these plants served mostly as peaking or intermediate facilities, generating, on average, approximately 10 percent of the electricity produced by the company over the past three years.
The following plants will be retired: Bay Shore Plant, Units 2-4, Oregon, Ohio; Eastlake Plant, Eastlake, Ohio; Ashtabula Plant, Ashtabula, Ohio; Lake Shore Plant, Cleveland, Ohio; Armstrong Power Station, Adrian, Pa.; and R. Paul Smith Power Station, Williamsport, Md.”
…The plant retirements are subject to review for reliability impacts, if any, by PJM Interconnection, the regional transmission organization that controls the area where they are located.
FirstEnergy is finalizing MATS compliance plans for its remaining coal-fired units. Since the Clean Air Act became law in 1970, FirstEnergy and its predecessor companies have invested more than $10 billion in environmental protection efforts.
Since 1990, FirstEnergy has reduced emissions of nitrogen oxides by more than 76 percent, sulfer dioxide by more than 86 percent and mercury by about 56 percent. When the six coal-fired plants are removed from FirstEnergy’s competitive generating fleet, more than 96 percent of the power provided will come from resources that are non- or low-emitting, including nuclear, hydro, pumped-storage hydro, natural gas and scrubbed coal units. ”
— PR Newswire
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Statement by Sandy Buchanan, Executive Director, Ohio Citizen Action, on today’s First Energy announcement that it would close all four of its obsolete Lake Erie coal plants
“Today’s news is more than a victory for our campaign to convince FirstEnergy to close these plants. It is a milestone in a much much longer grassroots effort to pass the Clean Air Act back in 1970, and then to get it enforced.
This is especially gratifying for the tens of thousands of members of Ohio Citizen Action who have relentlessly pursued FirstEnergy since the late 1970’s. We are looking forward to breathing cleaner air. “
Council learns amount Tuesday
MARTINSVILLE, WV — “Martinsville’s share of costs for a power plant on which construction was halted more than two years ago is $826,102, Martinsville City Council learned Tuesday.
The city’s full ‘stranded cost’ — the cost incurred to develop a coal-fired power plant in Meigs County, Ohio, called the AMP Generating Station (AMPGS) project — is $1,305,506, according to information from AMP President/CEO Marc S. Gerken that was given to council on Tuesday.
However, that amount was reduced by $479,404 thanks to a development fee, leaving the city with the $826,102 bill, the information shows.
Martinsville buys wholesale power through AMP, a nonprofit organization, and then resells and distributes that power to city electric department customers. In November 2009, AMP quit developing the AMPGS project because contractors’ cost estimates had increased by 37 percent.
…Not included in the stranded costs are further net proceeds from litigation on the halted project, further settlements with contractors and/or equipment suppliers and disposition (or reuse) of the AMPGS site in Meigs County, according to Bowles.
Gerken’s information states the city has two choices:
• Make a lump sum payment of $826,102.
• Make a monthly payment for any period up to 15 years.”
— Martinsville Bulletin
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NEW YORK, NY — “One industry lamented a lack of inclusion in President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address Tuesday night: Coal.
Nowhere in the roughly 7,140-word speech was a mention of that energy source. Obama has long championed wind and solar, which he did again on Tuesday, but he also promoted natural gas and talked about an ‘all of the above’ strategy on energy. Read more on Obama’s State of the Union.
But what Obama didn’t mention was coal. ‘It is inconceivable that we can reach our shared national goals of creating jobs, rebuilding U.S. manufacturing and keeping energy affordable for our families and businesses without domestically-produced coal playing a central role,’ said Steve Miller, president and CEO of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity.
Coal’s lack of inclusion probably had to do with its environmental merits, or not, as the case may be.
Natural gas produces 43% fewer carbon emissions than coal for each unit of energy delivered, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. Then again, shale gas extraction runs the risk of water pollution, a debate that Obama alluded to when he said that he was requiring companies that drill for gas on public lands to disclose the chemicals they use.”
— Steve Goldstein, MarketWatch
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— Taylor Kuykendall, West Virginia State Journal
 CINCINNATI — “Last Election Day, Cincinnati voters overwhelmingly approved Issues 44 and 45, authorizing the city to negotiate group buying rates for electricity and natural gas. Qualls sponsored the ordinances to put the measures on the ballot.
More than 300 communities across Ohio have saved hundreds of millions of dollars on their electric bills since Ohio made this innovative tool — known as aggregation — available to communities in 2000. Aggregation has proven to be an effective way for residential and small business utility customers to save money. According to a report last fall by Ohio Citizen Action, electric rates negotiated by other buying groups in the area ranged from 2 to 3 ½ cents per kilowatt-hour less than Duke’s generation rate, or “price to compare.”
Vice Mayor Qualls has invited administrators from nearby communities to describe their programs and the savings they’ve achieved. Green Township Administrator Kevin Celarek will speak at the January 30 hearing; Springfield Township Administrator Michael Hinnenkamp will talk about the savings their communities have seen.
Once City Council and the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio have approved a plan, the city administration will put the contracts out to bid, analyze the responses and recommend providers to the City Manager. The city will then notify residents of the terms of the contracts and how the program will work, including how residents can opt out if they wish. The city expects that the process should be completed ― and residents can start saving money on their monthly bills ― as soon as June 1.”
— Richard Todd, FOX19 News
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Join us as we honor Alice and Staughton Lynd
Cincinnati aggregation public hearings  Cincinnati City Hall, 801 Plum St. January 30 6 p.m. in council chambers February 6 1 p.m. in council chambers Write a letter to Senator Sherrod Brown  Urge Senator Brown to support U.S. EPA rules that will protect our health from polluting coal plants.
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