Tag Archive for: Particulate Emissions

Aged Chicago Area Coal-Plant To Close, Unable To Meet Stricter Air Standards

Chicago and North Western Indian residents have reason to expect cleaner air this week with the announcement that the nearly 90 year old coal-fired State Line Power Station would be closing. Located between Lake Michigan and the Chicago Skyway at the Illinois-Indiana border, the plant has long been known as one of the dirtiest power plants in the nation.

With the recent passing of stricter environmental air laws, including reductions in emissions limits from smoke stacks, utilities are finding that many of the older plants still in operation today simply are no longer cost effective. Executives from the Virginia-based Dominion Resources which, owns the plant, announced they had decided it isn’t worth upgrading the plant to comply with the federal Clean Air Act. The company plans to shutter State Line as early as next year and no later than 2014, said Thomas Farrell, Dominion’s chief executive.

To read more, please see the full article on the Chicago Tribune website here: http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-met-coal-plant-shutdown-20110505,0,6983.story

 

 
About the Author

| Dominick DalSanto is an Author & Environmental Technologies Expert, specializing in Dust Collection Systems. With nearly a decade of hands-on working experience in the industry, Dominick’s knowledge of the industry goes beyond a mere classroom education. He is currently serving as Online Marketing Director & Content Manager at Baghouse.com. His articles have been published not only on Baghouse.com , but also on other industry related blogs and sites. In his spare time, Dominick writes about travel and life abroad for various travel sites and blogs.

/by

Lack of Baghouse Maintenance Leads to Heavy Fines For Wood Pellet Manufacturer

, ,

Athens, Maine, USA – Violations regarding the operation and maintenance of a Baghouse have led to heavy fines of over $30,000 being imposed to a wood processing plant in Athens, Maine. The fines were issued by the Maine Department of Environmental Protection.

The fines were issued to the plant for violating terms of their state air emissions permit. The plant was found to be operating its Baghouse without having replaced a number of Baghouse Filters that had been damaged/destroyed in a recent fire. The plant also was found to be exceeding limits for particulate matter emissions, due to improper

In addition to issues relating to the dust collection system, the plant also was cited for not maintaining an operational wet-scrubber, maintaining required logs of operating hours, and exceeding the limit for propane usage. They were also cited for failure to report the Baghouse fire indecent that had previously damaged the Baghouse and its filters, and that the wet-scrubber system had experienced a service outage.

The Maine Department of Environmental Protection is the state agency charged with enforcing Maine’s environmental laws.

According to the monthly enforcement report, issued in March 2011,  Maine Woods Pellets will pay the fine in monthly installments after it did not correctly operate its air pollution systems.

 
 
About the Author

| Dominick DalSanto is an Author & Environmental Technologies Expert, specializing in Dust Collection Systems. With nearly a decade of hands-on working experience in the industry, Dominick’s knowledge of the industry goes beyond a mere classroom education. He is currently serving as Online Marketing Director & Content Manager at Baghouse.com. His articles have been published not only on Baghouse.com , but also on other industry related blogs and sites. In his spare time, Dominick writes about travel and life abroad for various travel sites and blogs.

/by

One Dust Explosion Per Week in UK, and 2000 Per Year in Europe Says New Study

, ,

A new report by leading industry experts states that 2000 dust explosions in factories and industrial facilities across Europe each year. An average of 50 per year are reported in the UK alone, nearly one a week. The report prepared by Dr. Julian Hought of risk management specialists, HFL Risk Services, also highlights that a large percentage of these incedents do not involve what we would normally classify as high-risk manufacturing processes, such as chemical production. In fact nearly 24% of incidents reported occurred in the food industry, with products as benign as flour, coffee, and sugar.

The report however stresses that a large part of the problem is that companies and employees do not realize just how dangerous these dusts can be when found in hazardous amounts within facilities. Proper dust collection equipment, and employee hazardous dust safety training are key to preventing these often deadly accidents from taking place.

To read the full report, please click here: http://www.hazardexonthenet.net/article/40288/Dust-to-Dust.aspx?AreaID=2

 

 
About the Author

| Dominick DalSanto is an Author & Environmental Technologies Expert, specializing in Dust Collection Systems. With nearly a decade of hands-on working experience in the industry, Dominick’s knowledge of the industry goes beyond a mere classroom education. He is currently serving as Online Marketing Director & Content Manager at Baghouse.com. His articles have been published not only on Baghouse.com , but also on other industry related blogs and sites. In his spare time, Dominick writes about travel and life abroad for various travel sites and blogs.

/by

Article by Baghouse.com Featured on Major Envionmental Blog

,

A new article from Baghouse.com has been featured on the well-known environmental blog Triplepundit.com. This article highlights the plight of a group of farmers and ranchers in Texas whose livelihoods have been devastated by acid rain, as they struggle to gain compensation, and recognition from the near by coal-fired power plants that they say are causing the problem.

 

You can read the full article here online: http://www.triplepundit.com/2011/02/pecan-growers-blame-coal-fired-plant-killing-crops/

 

 
About the Author

| Dominick DalSanto is an Author & Environmental Technologies Expert, specializing in Dust Collection Systems. With nearly a decade of hands-on working experience in the industry, Dominick’s knowledge of the industry goes beyond a mere classroom education. He is currently serving as Online Marketing Director & Content Manager at Baghouse.com. His articles have been published not only on Baghouse.com , but also on other industry related blogs and sites. In his spare time, Dominick writes about travel and life abroad for various travel sites and blogs.

/by

EPA sets new Clean Air Act Regulations for Boilers and Incinerators

,

Revised standards will bring dramatic benefits to public health, and cost nearly 50% less than initial proposals

By Dominick DalSanto
Environmental Technology Expert & Author
Baghouse.com

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued its final set of Clean Air Act standards for boilers and incinerators. The new standards will lead to a reduction of harmful emissions including mercury, and soot from this equipment. Recently federal court orders had charge the agency with the task of issuing final standards ahead of its proposed date. The new set of standards are expected to cost approximately 50 percent less to implement than the original proposal.

The court’s directive from September 2009 led to the EPA issuing a proposal of new standards in April 2010. The court case struck down a set of industry standards that had been proposed and adopted during the Bush administration. After receiving much public input, the EPA made substantial changes and was granted an additional 30 days by the court in December 2010 to implement as much as the public’s input as possible.

The proposed public health benefits for this plan are quite extensive. Exposure to emissions of mercury, soot and several other harmful compounds are very damaging to humans. These pollutants aggravate preexisting conditions such as cancer, heart disease, and asthma, and are especially hard on children, even causing developmental disabilities in some. The EPA estimates that between 2,600 to 6,600 premature deaths will be avoided along with 4,100 heart attacks, and 42,000 asthma attacks.

Much of the public comment on the proposed set of regulations involved the initially high cost of implementation. However, the newly revised standards represent a dramatic cut in the cost of implementation, while maintaining maximum public health benefits. As a result, EPA estimates that for every dollar spent to cut these pollutants, the public will see between $10 to $24 in health benefits, including fewer premature deaths.

Over 4,800 comments were received from both industry, and communities throughout the United States. This included a substantial amount of new information from industrial sources that had previously not been considered. In addition, President Obama recently issued an executive order that called on the EPA to reform its regulatory review process to ensure maximum protection for public health, while not unattainable burdens upon industry. Based on these factors, the EPA revised the proposed, standards, to provide addition flexibility and cost effective techniques – achieving significant pollution reduction and important health benefits, while lowering the cost of pollution control installation and maintenance by about 50 percent, or $1.8 billion.

Details of the new EPA Clean Air Act Standards for Incinerators, and Boilers

Industrial Boiler emissions are include mercury, soot, and ozone.

Emissions from industrial boilers now must conform to EPA emission standards. This includes installing pollution control technologies such as Dust Collectors, and Air Scrubbers to remove harmful compounds from the air.

Several different kinds of boiler and incinerator equipment are covered by the new EPA regulations, including:

  • Boilers used at heavy emissions sources: The approximately 13,800 boilers located at large sources of harmful emissions including chemical manufacturing plants, oil refineries, and similar industrial locations. These standards will reduce the emissions of harmful pollutants at these sources including: mercury, organic air toxins, and dioxins. Estimates for the cost of implementing these new standards in this sector are now $1.5 billion lower than the initial projected cost. Health benefits associated with reduced exposure to these harmful compounds, fine particles, and ozone are projected to save between $22 billion to $54 billion in 2014.
  • Boilers at light emissions sources: There are about 187,000 boilers located at small sources of air pollutants, including universities, hospitals, hotels and commercial buildings that may be covered by these standards. Due to the small amount of emissions these sources are responsible for, EPA has limited the impact of the final rule making on small entities. The original standards for these have been dramatically refined and updated to ensure maximum flexibility for these sources, including for some sources, revising the requirement from maximum achievable control technology to generally available control technology. The cost reduction from the proposed standard to the final is estimated to be $209 million.
  • Solid waste incinerators: There are approximately 88 solid waste incinerators are employed in commercial or industrial settings. These include those used in cement manufacturing facilities. These standards, which facilities will need to meet by 2016 at the latest, will reduce emissions of harmful pollutants including mercury, lead, cadmium, nitrogen dioxide and particle pollution. The cost reduction from the proposed standard to the final is estimated to be $12 million.

In separate but related actions, EPA is finalizing emission standards for sewage sludge incinerators. While there are more than 200 sewage sludge incinerators across the country, EPA expects that over 150 are already in compliance. These standards will reduce emissions of harmful pollutants including mercury, lead, cadmium, and hydrogen chloride from the remaining 50 that may need to leverage existing technologies to meet the new standards.

2,600 to 6,600 premature deaths will be avoided along with 4,100 heart attacks, and 42,000 asthma attacks.

EPA has also identified which non-hazardous secondary materials are considered solid waste when burned in combustion units. This distinction determines which Clean Air Act standard is applied when the material is burned. The non-hazardous secondary materials that can be burned as non-waste fuel include scrap tires managed under established tire collection programs. This step simplifies the rules and provides additional clarity and direction for facilities. To determine that materials are non-hazardous secondary materials when burned under today’s rule, materials must not have been discarded and must be legitimately used as a fuel.

The agency recognizes that secondary materials are widely used today as raw materials, as products, and as fuels in industrial processes. EPA believes that the final rule helps set protective emissions standards under the Clean Air Act.

The emissions standards for sewage sludge incinerators and the definition of solid waste are not part of today’s reconsideration.

About 200,000 boilers are located at small and large sources of air toxic emissions across the country. The final standards require many types of boilers to follow practical, cost-effective work practice standards to reduce emissions. To ensure smooth implementation, EPA is working with the departments of Energy (DOE) and Agriculture (USDA) to provide the diverse set of facilities impacted by the standards with technical assistance that will help boilers burn cleaner and more efficiently. DOE will work with large coal and oil-burning sources to help them identify clean energy strategies that will reduce harmful emissions and make boilers run more efficiently and cost-effectively. In addition, USDA will reach out to small sources to help owners and operators understand the standards and their cost and energy saving features.

 

 
About the Author

| Dominick DalSanto is an Author & Environmental Technologies Expert, specializing in Dust Collection Systems. With nearly a decade of hands-on working experience in the industry, Dominick’s knowledge of the industry goes beyond a mere classroom education. He is currently serving as Online Marketing Director & Content Manager at Baghouse.com. His articles have been published not only on Baghouse.com , but also on other industry related blogs and sites. In his spare time, Dominick writes about travel and life abroad for various travel sites and blogs.

/by

Polluted Air Found to be a Leading Cause Of Heart Attacks, Costing 2 Million Deaths a Year

By Dominick DalSanto
Environmental Technologies Expert, & Author
Baghouse.com

A new report finds that air pollution is a leading cause of heart attacks worldwide, along with alcohol, drug use and physical exertion.

Triggers such as Sex, anger, marijuana use and chest or respiratory infections  can also trigger heart attacks to different extents, the researchers said, but air pollution, particularly in heavy traffic, is the major culprit.

Doctors are always looking at individual factors, but often they fail to take into consideration population-wide factors when researching heart risks. Even so called “low risk” factors, when spread out over such a large percentage of the population, can end up being a major cause. Preventing them is just as vital in the large scope of things, as preventing less common, higher risk factors such as drug abuse.

The study led by Tim Nawrot of Hasselt University in Belgium, and which was published Lancet Journal, was the result of comparing data from 36 separate studies. Then the researchers calculated the relative risk posed by a series of heart attack triggers and their population-attributable fraction (PAF) — in other words the proportion of total heart attacks estimated to have been caused by each trigger.

WHO (The World Health Organization) calls air pollution as “a major environmental risk to health”. According to its own estimates, nearly 2 million premature deaths a year are the result of air pollution.

Across Asia, a recent report published this year found that many major cities in the region exceed the WHO’s air quality standards. That often lethal mixture of pollutants in the air combine to cause nearly 530,00 premature deaths each year.

The largest source of these harmful emissions, are industrial plants and power generation stations that do not employ sufficient pollution control equipment. The most evident type of this pollution, smog, is caused mainly by particulate matter emissions from the burning of coal without first processing the exhaust through the proper dust collection equipment.

While passive smoking was not included in this study, Nawrot said the effects of second-hand smoke were likely to be similar to that of outdoor air pollution, and noted previous research which found that bans on smoking in public places have significantly reduced heart attack rates.

The highest risk PAF was exposure to traffic, followed by physical exertion, alcohol, coffee, air pollution, and then things like anger, sex, cocaine use, smoking marijuana and respiratory infections.

 

 
About the Author

| Dominick DalSanto is an Author & Environmental Technologies Expert, specializing in Dust Collection Systems. With nearly a decade of hands-on working experience in the industry, Dominick’s knowledge of the industry goes beyond a mere classroom education. He is currently serving as Online Marketing Director & Content Manager at Baghouse.com. His articles have been published not only on Baghouse.com , but also on other industry related blogs and sites. In his spare time, Dominick writes about travel and life abroad for various travel sites and blogs.

/by

Biomass Power Plants Fined $835,000 For Excess Particulate Matter Emissions

,

By Dominick DalSanto
Environmental Technologies Expert & Author
Baghouse.com

Two Biomass power plants in California’s central valley were fined $835,000 by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for exceeding emission limits of nitrogen oxides (which lead to the formation of Ozone), and fine particulate matter. Ampersand Chowchilla Biomass, LLC, (ACB), and Merced Power, LLC, (MP), are located within 12 miles of each other in California’s San Joaquin Valley. An additional fine of $15,000 was issued to ACB by the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District for violation of a district only statute.

The two plants which began operating in 2008 after nearly 2 years of refurbishments, are additionally required to install new pollution control technologies, and monitoring systems. As a result of this action, the plants have installed equipment that will reduce nitrogen oxide emissions by up to 180 tons per year, and carbon monoxide by up to 365 tons per year. The EPA and The District have placed the plants under supervision for the next years years to ensure compliance.

Failure to maintain a fully functionally dust collection system often leads to heavy governmental fines, and sanctions. In the end, the cost of properly maintaining your dust collection system is much lower than the costs associated with operating a faulty, inefficient, and inadequate system.

This action is part of the EPA’s larger efforts for improve the air quality across the nation, specifically in some of the nations largest urban areas. The San Joaquin Valley suffers from one of the worst air quality situations in the country. With heavy industry, a strong reliance on personal automobiles (lack of public transportation), and geographical characteristics all combining to create large amounts of smog, ozone and particulate matter pollution. The area often consistently exceeds national health standards for ozone and particulate matter.

“EPA is committed to doing our part to tackle the worst air quality in the nation. Today’s enforcement actions are a victory for human health,” said Jared Blumenfeld, EPA’s Regional Administrator for the Pacific Southwest. “San Joaquin Valley communities can now breathe easier as a result of the significant pollution controls won in these settlements.”

Nitrogen oxides react with other chemicals to form ozone and small particles, both harmful to the public’s health. Ozone and particulate matter affect the human respiratory system, and are linked to a variety of significant health problems ranging from aggravated asthma to premature death in people with heart and lung disease.

Biomass power plants use green waste from farms and other operations that would otherwise be subject to open burning, and construction debris that might have gone to a landfill, to generate power. A key piece of equipment needed to control emissions from this process, is an suitable dust collection system. As this case demonstrates, failure to maintain a fully functionally dust collection system often leads to heavy governmental fines, and sanctions. In the end, the cost of properly maintaining your dust collection system is much lower than the costs associated with operating a faulty, inefficient, and inadequate system.

After refurbishing the plants in 2007-2008, ACB and MP initiated operations in 2008. A joint investigation by the EPA and District found that ACB and MP violated the air permits issued to them by the District by:

· Emitting air pollutants including nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, and carbon monoxide in excess of the permit limits;

· Failing to perform timely source testing to measure emissions of various air pollutants;

· Failing to properly install and operate emissions control systems for nitrogen oxides, a precursor to ozone; and

· Failing to certify the continuous emissions monitoring systems.

The plants also violated various District rules including requirements for emissions control plans.

Do you know of any real-life examples where plants chose not to invest in a adequate dust collection system (or failed to maintain it properly, install a larger system to keep up with production needs, etc…) and in the end it ended up costing them much more later on? If you do, we would love to hear from you in the comments section below.

 

 
About the Author

| Dominick DalSanto is an Author & Environmental Technologies Expert, specializing in Dust Collection Systems. With nearly a decade of hands-on working experience in the industry, Dominick’s knowledge of the industry goes beyond a mere classroom education. He is currently serving as Online Marketing Director & Content Manager at Baghouse.com. His articles have been published not only on Baghouse.com , but also on other industry related blogs and sites. In his spare time, Dominick writes about travel and life abroad for various travel sites and blogs.

/by