Citizens group seeks tougher gas rules
thetimes-tribune.com/news/gas-drilling/citizens-group-seeks-tougher-gas-rules-1.1222909#axzz1bnmom3Ug
BY ROBERT SWIFT (HARRISBURG BUREAU CHIEF)
Published: October 25, 2011
HARRISBURG – Pennsylvania should enact stricter rules to protect air quality and surface water and groundwater from the impact of natural gas drilling, a report issued by the Citizens Marcellus Shale Commission said on Monday.
The commission was formed as a counterpart to Gov. Tom Corbett’s Marcellus Shale Commission and held hearings this fall around the state, including Wysox and Williamsport.
The governor’s commission made no recommendations to control or monitor air pollution from well flaring, equipment leaks and compressor engines, said Thomas Au, a Pennsylvania Sierra Club official.
The citizens’ commission recommends several steps, including more state monitoring of air pollutants in the vicinity of wells and compressor engines and stronger enforcement at drilling sites of state laws that limit truck idling. Other recommendations call for a state drilling tax, restoring the authority of county conservation districts to review stormwater permits and establishing an office of state consumer environmental advocate.
Pennsylvania should ban drilling in flood plains, said John Trallo, a commission member from Sonestown, Sullivan County. Mr. Trallo is chairman of Residents United for Pennsylvania/Sullivan County chapter.
Forest clear-cutting to open space for drilling pads will make future floods even worse than those that hit the region in September, he said.
“We repeatedly heard that natural gas development has moved too quickly,” said Roberta Winters, an official with the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania about testimony at the hearings. “Pennsylvania was and is still not prepared to limit the risks and address its impact.”
The group’s report appears with time running out for a Senate Republican leader’s call for action on an impact fee bill on natural gas drilling during October. President Pro Tempore Joseph Scarnati, R-25, Jefferson County, is sponsor of an impact fee bill that won tentative approval from a Senate committee last spring but has yet to reach the Senate floor.
ONLINE: The report is accessible at http://citizens marcellusshale.com.
Contact the writer: rswift@timeshamrock.com
Pa. issues air pollution rules for gas drilling
www.timesleader.com/news/Pa-issues-air-pollution-rules-for-gas-drilling.html
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania state environmental regulators will follow new guidelines endorsed by a natural gas industry group for deciding how to group together facilities such as wells, dehydrators and compressors when enforcing air pollution standards.
The Department of Environmental Protection issued the new guidelines Wednesday and opened them up for public comment until Nov. 21.
The Citizens Voice of Wilkes-Barre reports (http://bit.ly/q4a4KE) that the industry group, Marcellus Shale Coalition, last year urged the state not to group air pollution sources that are not contiguous or adjacent, even if they’re connected by pipelines.
Instead, it recommended a quarter-mile rule that several other states follow and which the Pennsylvania DEP wants to follow.
The new guidelines take effect immediately, but are considered interim for now.
EPA hearing focuses on reducing gas drilling air pollution
http://www.timesleader.com/news/EPA_hearing_focuses_on_reducing_gas_drilling_air_pollution_09-28-2011.html
September 28, 2011
By KEVIN BEGOS
PITTSBURGH — A public hearing Tuesday on proposed rules to reduce air pollution from oil and gas drilling operations found at least some points of agreement between industry and environmental groups.
Howard Feldman, the director of regulatory and scientific affairs at the American Petroleum Institute, was the first speaker at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency hearing in Pittsburgh.
Feldman asked the EPA to extend the public comment period and give companies a one-year extension to comply with the new rules. The current EPA timeline would see the rules take effect in the spring of 2012.
But Feldman told The Associated Press that industry isn’t opposed to the basic concept of the EPA proposal, which would apply new pollution control standards to about 25,000 gas wells that are hydraulically fractured, or fracked, each year. The fracking process blasts large amounts of water deep into the earth to break up dense shale and allow natural gas to escape.
“We think EPA has done a good job on the rule. We think it’s pretty reasonable,” Feldman said. “We just need a few more accommodations to make this work smoothly.”
The technology to implement the proposed rule allows drillers to capture and sell gas that would normally go to waste. EPA estimates that the rule would actually save the industry about $30 million each year.
“A lot of companies are doing that already,” Feldman said of the capture process.
But some said the issues in Pennsylvania require more time to review.
Kathryn Klaber, president of the Marcellus Shale Coalition, said her group thinks there’s “a lot more work to do” on the proposed rules, which could place a heavy burden on industry.
But citizens and environmental groups said there should be no delays in implementing the rules, because there are already problems.
New air rules to curb pollution from gas wells
http://standardspeaker.com/news/new-air-rules-to-curb-pollution-from-gas-wells-1.1181579#axzz1TUpEddKL
By Laura Legere (Staff Writer)
Published: July 29, 2011
In an effort to curb smog and airborne chemicals linked to oil and gas production, federal environmental regulators moved Thursday to place new controls on air pollution caused by the drilling, processing and transmission of the fuels.
The proposed rules released by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency would for the first time require “green completions” at nearly all hydraulically fractured oil and gas wells in the country – a way of capturing and sending to market gas that would otherwise escape into the atmosphere.
The new requirements would also stem pollution from some compressors, valves, dehydrators and processing plants, as well as the storage tanks that hold the hydrocarbon liquids associated with “wet” forms of gas.
The rules aim to curb smog-causing chemicals called volatile organic compounds (VOCs), as well as air toxics, such as benzene, that are known or suspected to cause cancer. Although the rules do not directly target the leakage of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, the proposals to limit the VOCs and air toxics will also reduce the amount of methane escaping into the atmosphere by about 26 percent, the agency said.
The EPA characterized the rules as “extremely cost-effective” and estimated the requirements will save the industry nearly $30 million a year above the $754 million annually it will cost to meet the requirements. The agency said the rules will mandate practices already used voluntarily by some companies and required by some states.
“Reducing these emissions will help cut toxic pollution that can increase cancer risks and smog that can cause asthma attacks and premature death – all while giving these operators additional product to bring to market,” said Gina McCarthy, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation.
Environmental groups who sued the EPA to update its standards by a court-ordered deadline Thursday welcomed the proposals.
Jeremy Nichols, climate and energy program director of New Mexico-based WildEarth Guardians, said the “woefully outdated” current rules allowed the buildup of ground-level ozone in rural, heavily drilled parts of Wyoming so the smog there rivaled that in Los Angeles.
The proposed rules offer benefits to the industry and the environment, he said.
“The solution to clearing the air more often than not means keeping more product in the pipeline,” he said.
Rules mandating green completions may prove difficult at first for operators in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale, where pipeline infrastructure is still catching up to the pace at which new gas wells are drilled.
“Certainly it’s easier to capture methane when a gas field is a little more mature because the pipeline infrastructure is in place that allows you to capture it,” said former Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection secretary John Hanger.
He said the proposed rules “can help maximize the environmental benefits that using more natural gas in our society offers.”
In its response to the proposed rules, the Pennsylvania-based industry group the Marcellus Shale Coalition pointed to three short-term state air monitoring studies near Marcellus wells that did not find any compounds in concentrations “that would likely trigger air-related health issues.”
“This sweeping set of potentially unworkable regulations represents an overreach that could, ironically, undercut the production of American natural gas, an abundant energy resource that is critical to strengthening our nation’s air quality,” coalition president Kathryn Klaber said.
The EPA will have a public comment period on the proposed rules and three public hearings in the Dallas, Texas; Denver, Colo. and Pittsburgh areas, for which details have not yet been announced.
The agency is under a court order to take final action on the rules by Feb. 28, 2012.
llegere@timesshamrock.com
EPA Reduces Smokestack Pollution
EPA Reduces Smokestack Pollution, Protecting Americans’ Health from Soot and Smog
Clean Air Act protections will cut dangerous pollution in communities that are home to 240 million Americans
WASHINGTON – Building on the Obama Administration’s strong record of protecting the public’s health through common-sense clean air standards – including proposed standards to reduce emissions of mercury and other air toxics, as well as air quality standards for sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide – the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today finalized additional Clean Air Act protections that will slash hundreds of thousands of tons of smokestack emissions that travel long distances through the air leading to soot and smog, threatening the health of hundreds of millions of Americans living downwind. The Cross-State Air Pollution Rule will protect communities that are home to 240 million Americans from smog and soot pollution, preventing up to 34,000 premature deaths, 15,000 nonfatal heart attacks, 19,000 cases of acute bronchitis, 400,000 cases of aggravated asthma, and 1.8 million sick days a year beginning in 2014 – achieving up to $280 billion in annual health benefits. Twenty seven states in the eastern half of the country will work with power plants to cut air pollution under the rule, which leverages widely available, proven and cost-effective control technologies. Ensuring flexibility, EPA will work with states to help develop the most appropriate path forward to deliver significant reductions in harmful emissions while minimizing costs for utilities and consumers.
“No community should have to bear the burden of another community’s polluters, or be powerless to prevent air pollution that leads to asthma, heart attacks and other harmful illnesses. These Clean Air Act safeguards will help protect the health of millions of Americans and save lives by preventing smog and soot pollution from traveling hundreds of miles and contaminating the air they breathe,” said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. “By maximizing flexibility and leveraging existing technology, the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule will help ensure that American families aren’t suffering the consequences of pollution generated far from home, while allowing states to decide how best to decrease dangerous air pollution in the most cost effective way.”
Carried long distances across the country by wind and weather, power plant emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxide (NOx) continually travel across state lines. As the pollution is transported, it reacts in the atmosphere and contributes to harmful levels of smog (ground-level ozone) and soot (fine particles), which are scientifically linked to widespread illnesses and premature deaths and prevent many cities and communities from enjoying healthy air quality.
The rule will improve air quality by cutting SO2 and NOx emissions that contribute to pollution problems in other states. By 2014, the rule and other state and EPA actions will reduce SO2 emissions by 73 percent from 2005 levels. NOx emissions will drop by 54 percent. Following the Clean Air Act’s “Good Neighbor” mandate to limit interstate air pollution, the rule will help states that are struggling to protect air quality from pollution emitted outside their borders, and it uses an approach that can be applied in the future to help areas continue to meet and maintain air quality health standards.
The Cross-State Air Pollution Rule replaces and strengthens the 2005 Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR), which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ordered EPA to revise in 2008. The court allowed CAIR to remain in place temporarily while EPA worked to finalize today’s replacement rule.
The rule will protect over 240 million Americans living in the eastern half of the country, resulting in up to $280 billion in annual benefits. The benefits far outweigh the $800 million projected to be spent annually on this rule in 2014 and the roughly $1.6 billion per year in capital investments already underway as a result of CAIR. EPA expects pollution reductions to occur quickly without large expenditures by the power industry. Many power plants covered by the rule have already made substantial investments in clean air technologies to reduce SO2 and NOx emissions. The rule will level the playing field for power plants that are already controlling these emissions by requiring more facilities to do the same. In the states where investments in control technology are required, health and environmental benefits will be substantial.
The rule will also help improve visibility in state and national parks while better protecting sensitive ecosystems, including Appalachian streams, Adirondack lakes, estuaries, coastal waters, and forests. In a supplemental rulemaking based on further review and analysis of air quality information, EPA is also proposing to require sources in Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin to reduce NOX emissions during the summertime ozone season. The proposal would increase the total number of states covered by the rule from 27 to 28. Five of these six states are covered for other pollutants under the rule. The proposal is open for public review and comment for 45 days after publication in the Federal Register.
More information: http://www.epa.gov/crossstaterule/
CONTACT:
Enesta Jones
jones.enesta@epa.gov
202-564-7873
202-564-4355
Could Smog Shroud the Marcellus Shale’s Natural Gas Boom?
http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2011/05/27/27greenwire-could-smog-shroud-the-marcellus-shales-natural-3397.html
By GABRIEL NELSON of Greenwire
Published: May 27, 2011
Since returning to private life, John Hanger, the former secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, has kept busy trying to douse fears that his state’s natural gas boom is contaminating drinking water.
Hanger’s two-year tenure saw the Marcellus Shale, an underground rock formation that runs beneath much of the Northeast, change from a geological oddity into the center of a American drilling renaissance. Under his watch, Pennsylvania scrambled to respond to claims that water supplies are being tainted by the practice of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in which a blend of water, sand and chemicals is injected underground to break the shale and release the gas inside.
Hanger, a Democrat who previously led the Pennsylvania-based environmental group PennFuture, left office convinced that the high-profile fracas over fracking is misguided.
Air pollution is more of an Achilles’ heel for drilling in the Northeast, he said last week, pointing to spikes in emissions that have followed natural gas development in other parts of the country.
Thousands of natural gas wells are expected to be drilled in Pennsylvania over the next few years, requiring a fleet of construction equipment, diesel engines and compressor stations. Together, they could be a large new source of smog-forming emissions along the Northeast corridor, much of which still struggles with old air quality standards at a time when U.S. EPA is preparing to make the rules stricter.
Read more
EPA to Hold Public Hearing on Mercury Pollution from Power Plants
Media Contact: Bonnie Smith, 215-814-5543, smith.bonnie@epa.gov
May 3, 2011
EPA to Hold Public Hearing on National Standard for Mercury Pollution from Power Plants
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing standards to limit mercury, acid gases and other toxic pollution from power plants.
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will hold a public hearing in Philadelphia on May 24, 2011 on the proposed mercury and air toxics standards. The new power plant mercury and air toxics standards would require many power plants to install widely available, proven pollution control technologies to cut harmful emissions of mercury, arsenic, chromium, nickel and acid gases, while preventing as many as 17,000 premature deaths and 11,000 heart attacks a year.
- WHAT: Public hearing on proposed mercury and air toxics standards
- WHEN: Tuesday, May 24, 2011. The hearing will begin at 9 a.m. and continue until 8 p.m. EDT
- WHERE: Philadelphia: Westin Philadelphia, 99 S. 17th Street at Liberty Place, Philadelphia, PA. 19103
- REGISTRATION: The public may register to speak at a specific time at a hearing by contacting Pamela Garrett at 919-541-7966 or garrett.pamela@epa.gov or registering in person on the day of a hearing. EPA also will accept written comments on the proposed standards until July 5, 2011. EPA will finalize the rule by November 2011.
- Preregistration deadline 5 p.m., May 19
- ADDITION INFORMATION: Reducing Toxic Air Emissions From Power Plants: For more information on the hearings and instructions for submitting written comments see: http://www.epa.gov/airquality/powerplanttoxics/
- Proposed Rule (PDF) (946pp, 1.9 MB) [ http://www.epa.gov/airquality/powerplanttoxics/pdfs/proposal.pdf ] Note: Pages 214 and 518 of the signed proposed rule contain references to proprietary technology. EPA included these references merely to illustrate that the technologies under discussion are commercially available. EPA and the U.S. government do not endorse any of the listed products.
- Fact Sheet Summarizing the Proposed Rule (PDF) (5pp, 36k) [ http://www.epa.gov/airquality/powerplanttoxics/pdfs/proposalfactsheet.pdf ]
- Overview Presentation (PDF) (18pp, 797k) [ http://www.epa.gov/airquality/powerplanttoxics/pdfs/presentation.pdf ]
- Overview Fact Sheet (PDF) (5pp, 48k) [ http://www.epa.gov/airquality/powerplanttoxics/pdfs/overviewfactsheet.pdf ]
- Regulatory Impact Analysis [ http://www.epa.gov/ttn/ecas/ria.html ]
- Integrated Planning Model (IPM) Analysis [ http://www.epa.gov/airmarkets/progsregs/epa-ipm/toxics.html ]
Agency action would cut transport of air pollutants from Pa. power plant
EPA Proposes to Grant Clean Air Act Petition to Improve Air Quality in New Jersey
WASHINGTON (March 31, 2011) – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today proposed to grant a petition submitted by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection to limit sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions from a Pennsylvania power plant that are adversely impacting air quality in four New Jersey counties. The proposed rule, when final, would require the Portland Generating Station in Northampton County, Pa. to reduce its SO2 emissions by 81 percent over a three-year period. Exposure to SO2 can aggravate asthma and cause other respiratory difficulties. People with asthma, children, and the elderly are especially vulnerable to these effects.
Under the Clean Air Act, when a facility impacts air quality in another state, the affected state can petition EPA and request that the facility be required to reduce its impact. In a September 2010 petition, New Jersey asked EPA to find that the Portland power plant is impacting the state’s air quality and to require the facility to reduce its SO2 emissions. These emission reductions can be achieved using proven and widely available pollution control methods.
New Jersey conducted several air quality modeling analyses to evaluate SO2 levels in the state. These analyses show that the level of SO2 in the air is exceeding the agency’s 1-hour national air quality standard and that the Portland plant is the main source of emissions. EPA also conducted its own modeling analyses and found the same results.
Typically a mix of sources from multiple locations is responsible for air quality issues in a specific area. However, in this case, the extensive analysis shows a clear connection between the emissions from the Portland plant alone and the elevated level of SO2 in New Jersey.
EPA will accept comment on this proposal until May 27, 2011. The agency is also holding public hearing on this proposed rule on April 27, 2011 in Oxford, N.J. The hearing will provide stakeholders with the opportunity to submit written or oral comments in person. A written record of the hearing will be compiled and submitted to the docket. Any questions posed at the hearing will be replied to in a response to comment summary issued with EPA’s final response to the petition.
More information on the petition and public hearing: http://www.epa.gov/ttn/oarpg/new.html
Contacts: Terri A. White, EPA Region 3, (215) 814-5523, white.terri-a@epa.gov
Elias Rodriguez, EPA Region 2, (212) 637-3664, Rodriguez.elias@epa.gov
Don’t turn Pennsylvania into Texas
Introducing his first budget last week, Gov. Tom Corbett proposed gutting state funding for education while sparing natural gas drillers from the type of production tax imposed by all other major gas-producing states. Corbett argued that a gas industry unencumbered by a production tax would turn Pennsylvania into “the Texas of the natural gas boom.”
Well, there already is a “Texas of the natural gas boom.”
It’s called Texas.
And despite a longstanding, but loophole-ridden, 7.5 percent production tax on the nation’s most productive gas wells, Texas, like most states, is faced with a huge budget deficit.
In fact, a recent report by the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that Texas’ projected budget gap for fiscal year 2012 is the largest in the nation when measured against its current budget, at 31.5 percent.
Unlike his fellow Republican budget-cutters in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where projected budget shortfalls stand at 16.4 and 12.8 percent respectively, Texas Gov. Rick Perry can’t blame greedy state employee unions or out-of-control social spending for his money woes.
State employees in Texas have long been barred from collective bargaining and the state is notoriously stingy when it comes to spending on schools and social programs.
A 2009 study by the National Education Association found Texas ranked near the bottom for per-capita spending for public welfare programs and per-student expenditures in public schools. Nearly one-quarter of Texans lack health coverage, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, compared to about 10 percent in Pennsylvania and 15 percent nationwide.
That still hasn’t helped Texas escape the downturn in tax revenues ravaging all states, due largely to a weakened economy that seems to just now be on the road to recovery.
In fact the very refusal by uber-conservatives like Perry – who has proposed that his state opt out of the Social Security system and maybe the Union itself – to even consider reasonable and fair tax increases over the years is what has driven Texas closer to the brink than any other state.
That’s the road Tom Corbett is proposing we follow in his proposed budget.
He would rather take money and services away from public-school students, the poor and elderly than impose a fair tax on the gas industry, which, by the way, contributed nearly $1 million to his campaign.
Corbett’s proposed budget is unfair, unconscionable and unethical.
And it is likely to land us in the same mess as Texas.
http://citizensvoice.com/news/don-t-turn-pennsylvania-into-texas-1.1117896#axzz1GJB7bAaK
March 13, 2011
Company makes diesel with sun, water, CO2
Massachusetts biotech firm promises ‘energy independence.’
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — A Massachusetts biotechnology company says it can produce the fuel that runs Jaguars and jet engines using the same ingredients that make grass grow.
Joule Unlimited has invented a genetically engineered organism that it says simply secretes diesel fuel or ethanol wherever it finds sunlight, water and carbon dioxide.
The Cambridge, Mass.-based company says it can manipulate the organism to produce the renewable fuels on demand at unprecedented rates, and can do it in facilities large and small at costs comparable to the cheapest fossil fuels.
What can it mean? No less than “energy independence,” Joule’s web site tells the world, even if the world’s not quite convinced.
“We make some lofty claims, all of which we believe, all which we’ve validated, all of which we’ve shown to investors,” said Joule chief executive Bill Sims.
“If we’re half right, this revolutionizes the world’s largest industry, which is the oil and gas industry,” he said. “And if we’re right, there’s no reason why this technology can’t change the world.”
The doing, though, isn’t quite done, and there’s skepticism Joule can live up to its promises.
National Renewable Energy Laboratory scientist Philip Pienkos said Joule’s technology is exciting but unproven, and their claims of efficiency are undercut by difficulties they could have just collecting the fuel their organism is producing.
Timothy Donohue, director of the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says Joule must demonstrate its technology on a broad scale.
Perhaps it can work, but “the four letter word that’s the biggest stumbling block is whether it ‘will’ work,” Donohue said. “There are really good ideas that fail during scale up.”
Sims said he knows “there’s always skeptics for breakthrough technologies.”
“And they can ride home on their horse and use their abacus to calculate their checkbook balance,” he said.
Joule was founded in 2007. In the last year, it’s roughly doubled its employees to 70, closed a $30 million second round of private funding in April and added John Podesta, former White House chief of staff under President Bill Clinton, to its board of directors.
Work to create fuel from solar energy has been done for decades, such as by making ethanol from corn or extracting fuel from algae. But Joule says they’ve eliminated the middleman that’s makes producing biofuels on a large scale so costly.
That middleman is the “biomass,” such as the untold tons of corn or algae that must be grown, harvested and destroyed to extract a fuel that still must be treated and refined to be used. Joule says its organisms secrete a completed product, already identical to ethanol and the components of diesel fuel, then live on to keep producing it at remarkable rates.
Joule claims, for instance, that its cyanobacterium can produce 15,000 gallons of diesel full per acre annually, over four times more than the most efficient algal process for making fuel. And they say they can do it at $30 a barrel.
JAY LINDSAY Associated Press
February 28, 2011
http://www.timesleader.com/news/Company_makes_diesel_with_sun__water__CO2_02-27-2011.html
