Date: December 18, 2009
Source: News Room
Preliminary findings by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) find that between 190 and 411 coal-fired power plants could be shuttered if the EPA chooses for the first time to regulate coal ash as hazardous under Resource Conservation & Recovery Act (RCRA) rules. The utility industry including the Edison Electric Institute (EEI), which represents investor-owned utilities, fears that a hazardous designation would be a negative "game changer" by imposing prohibitively high compliance costs on many coal-fired power plants. As a result, Regional Transmission Organizations (RTOs) that move electricity across several states would experience between 4 and 19 percent drop in generating capacity, according to testimony from Ken Ladwig, EPRI senior research manager, before a House Energy & Commerce Committee environment panel hearing on Dec. 10. The results focus on the specific impacts on coal-fired power plants if they were required under a hazardous waste designation to switch from "wet" coal ash disposal in surface impoundments and other ponds to dry coal ash storage, for example in a landfill.
Ladwig also noted that EPRI's data is a preliminary analysis and that other metrics have not been examined, including electricity price impacts, job losses, "distributional equity (i.e., identification of who would benefit and who would bear the costs)," and secondary market impacts, such as impacts on coal mining, natural gas production and the "beneficial use markets" for coal ash, including concrete manufacturing and the construction industry. In a list of possible subjects to evaluate in the future, Ladwig also noted "transmission security impacts due to unit closures."
EPA is pursuing first-time RCRA rules for the disposal of coal waste in the wake of a massive coal ash spill at a Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) facility a year ago in December 2008. EEI argues that EPA should adopt new federal non-hazardous waste regulations under RCRA for waste management facilities where coal ash is stored and that doing so is consistent with EPA's 2000 regulatory determination that "coal ash does not warrant regulation as a hazardous waste.
EPA is currently considering various "hybrid" approaches to regulating coal ash in which it would be considered hazardous only under certain circumstances such as when stored in wet ponds, and non-hazardous if disposed in a lined landfill or beneficially reused, such as in making concrete.
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