What are the problems?

The Rock-Tenn Company paper recycling plant (at Hwy. 94 and Cretin Ave. in St. Paul) lost their cheap source of steam energy when the High Bridge coal plant was closed. Plans have been advanced to build an incinerator at the Rock-Tenn plant to burn RDF for fuel. Also, Midtown Eco Energy, sponsored by Kandiyohi Development Partners, is proposing to build a biomass incinerator in the Phillips neighborhood of Minneapolis.

Solid fuels and wastes are inherently harder to burn than liquids and gases. Their incineration emits toxic pollutants such as lead, mercury, and dioxin as well as produces more particulate pollution whose health effects are known to be severe, but whose effects have not been fully evaluated.

What exactly is RDF?
RDF = refuse-derived fuel = processed municipal waste = garbage. RDF is loaded with plastic (from the various plastics we discard every day), mercury, cadmium, lead, aluminum, and other toxic materials that are NOT removed as part of the “processing” before the garbage is burned. Some ground-up metals are removed – all that a large rotating magnet at the Newport garbage processing plant can pick up. But this magnet does not remove all the metal particles. Once burned, such toxins are emitted in very dangerous, very small particulate forms into the air we breathe. NO scrubber can remove all of these toxins from the burner emissions. Wind plumes can carry these toxins hundreds of miles; they settle on land and water where they ultimately get into the food chain.

Doesn't the EPA protect us?
Just because a garbage burner – or any kind of biomass or coal burner – meets the current EPA guidelines for emissions does NOT mean that those emissions are safe to humans or to the environment at large. EPA emissions standards have seriously eroded under the current Bush administration (See "EPA Ignored Advisers' Guidance", “Bush’s EPA Is Pursuing Fewer Polluters” , "Hundreds of EPA Scientists Report Political Interference Over Last Five Years" by Union of Concerned Scientists and "White House Pressured EPA"). We cannot trust the EPA to protect our health. Also, what has long been overlooked in the business-as-usual approach to the regulation of emissions is the cumulative effect of various environmental toxins upon public health. See "Lobbyists Fight Clean Air Rules", "The Health Effects of Waste Incinerators: Risk Assessment", "MPCA Air Quality Index"

Because such harmful effects are cumulative, they may take years or decades to finally overpower our immune systems. Independent scientists (researchers who have not been paid by those in the incinerator and garbage-processing industries, who stand to profit by “proving” that burners are safe) studying the effects of burner emissions are discovering alarming relationships between the incidences of serious diseases – cancers, reproductive system disorders, immune system disorders, heart and lung disease, asthma and other breathing disorders (especially the increases in childhood asthma), ADHD and other brain-function disorders in children, and fetal health disorders – and patients’ proximity to burners. For current research, see "Lead Exposure Endangers Children", "Our Bodies, Our Landfills?".

If genuinely renewable energy is not available in the short term, what can be done?
It has become apparent from the Rock-Tenn presentations to the Rock-Tenn Citizen Advisory Panel that the conservation measures the paper-recycling plant has taken so far leave room for improvement. It is NAB’s position that we would like to see Rock-Tenn invest and follow through with state-of-the-art conservation measures as a first and most economical renewable fuel source.

NAB acknowledges that it may be necessary for Rock-Tenn to continue burning natural gas as a fuel source in the immediate future. Natural gas (not being a solid fuel or waste) burns relatively cleanly, and, although prices can fluctuate, it is a reliable, safe, and reasonably clean alternative until a genuinely renewable, safe, and clean fuel supply can be obtained.

How do we know that incineration is an outdated technology?
BioCycle magazine reported that the number of garbage incinerators in the U.S. declined from 171 in 1991 to 107 in 2002. In the U.S. alone, over 300 incinerator proposals have been defeated since 1985. The U.S. has not permitted a new trash incinerator since 1995. (From Paul Connett’s “Incineration Vs. Alternatives” on our “Energy Info” page.) The Fedgazette (Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis) for March 2005 states: “Today, incineration is a legacy technology and a financial burden on the municipalities that bought into it.” (see complete article). See the 20 reasons against incinerators by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.

Don't we need to support energy creation through incineration to save jobs?
Investing in genuinely non-toxic, sustainable energy production has the potential to create many more new, clean and green jobs for the state of Minnesota and our nation. Even the Blue Green Alliance (a consortium of environmental groups and labor unions) promotes this possibility.

What about "fluidized bed combustors (FBC's) and "gasification"?
NAB has learned through its research that there is no technology that is functional today that eliminates the dangerous toxins and particulate matter created by incineration. See Summary of Studies on Emissions of PAH's, N2O, & CO and Gasification by Alan Muller.

What about "plasma arc" technology? It must be noted that the plasma arc tech is highly energy intensive; that if it is widely accepted, this will mean more mountain top removal for coal in Appalachia, more uranium mining on First Nation's lands, and far more pollution overall . . . for all. The technology is also capital intensive as well which has implications for becoming a magnet for waste from vast distances, processed as fast as possible, with much potential for incomplete treatment/air pollution issues, and ash disposal problems. For more info, see memo to NAB from Neil Tangri of www.no-burn.org and Florida Plasma Arc Facility from Bradley Angel of Greenaction.

What about burning “biomass?”
The Green Institute published its study, "Renewing Rock-Tenn: A Biomass Fuels Assessment for Rock-Tenn’s St. Paul Recycled Paper Mill," in March, 2007. It states “Although total quantities of urban tree residues in the Twin Cities can be large, available quantities are limited and highly variable.” Other sources of biomass, such as corn stover, must be hauled into the plant at extra expense, noise, and diesel truck pollution. See also the Green Institute’s cautions of December, 2007 in their document, “Comments on Midtown Eco-Energy Biomass Facility Permit Application,” posted on our Eco-Burner page. And read "Risky Business: Burning Wood & Other Biomass for Energy" and "Wood Ash: The Unregulated Radwaste." Toxic and particulate pollution continues to be a problem with biomass burning as well as any other type of incineration. Click here for "Changes in Lung Function and Airway Inflammation . . . in a Woodsmoke-Impacted Urban Area" and "Why are biofuels losing steam in Europe . . . and barreling ahead in the U.S.?"

What solutions does NAB support?
As mentioned earlier, NAB is urging Rock-Tenn to perform increased energy conservation measures at the plant. If need be, natural gas can be burned at Rock-Tenn for the foreseeable short-term with minimal pollution until a truly sustainable, clean, and green energy source can be installed. NAB supports Zero Waste initiatives as the basic solution to waste management. For further details, see NAB’s Mission Statement on our “About” page and related articles and publications on our “Energy Info” page.

Isn't building a biomass or garbage burner better than burning coal? Actually, we have seen some evidence that burning biomass materials—such as wood, corn stover, switchgrass—increases the amount of nano-particulates that are emitted into the air. As mentioned above, the smaller the particulate size, the more insidious and negative its effect on our health. It is very important to understand that these harmful nano-particulate emissions (smaller than 2.5 microns), are currently NOT monitored nor controlled in any way, either at the federal level through the EPA, or at our state level through the MPCA. In addition, the question contains a faulty bit of logic; no one is promising that the proposed burner is going to eliminate a coal-burning facility, so a new burner will add more pollution, not substitute one kind of pollution for another.

What about the claim that burning biomass is 'carbon-neutral'?
The "carbon-neutral" issue is very complex. Depending upon how you construct the cycle of the biomass burned, you can claim triumph for either side of the argument. There are many factors to consider but our research convinces us that burning biomass is indeed NOT carbon-neutral.

See "The Clean Energy Scam" by Michael Grunwald from TIME Magazine, March 27, 2008.

Read "Particles Cause Climate Change: Why Wood Burning is Not Carbon-Neutral" from Science Daily, July 19, 2006.

See "Black Carbon Emerges as a Main Contributor to Global Warming" from World Resources Institute, March 30, 2008.

Read Rabl, A., A. Benoist, et al. (2007). "Editorial - How to Account for CO2
Emissions from Biomass in an LCA." International Journal of Life Cycle
Assessment 12(5): 281.

For more detail, consult the Eunomia study, "A Changing Climate for Energy from Waste?: Final Report for Friends of the Earth." Note this quote from p. 42: "The analysis in Section 2.0 showed that where energy from waste generates electricity only, it is no better -- it is actually worse -- than average gas-fired generation in the UK."

Should we feel comforted by the MPCA's claim that we have less to fear from the effects of dioxin emission because we live in the city & not on a farm where animals ingest the dioxin & pass it on to us through food?

Dioxin is an extremely toxic substance and it should not be allowed to be emitted into the atmosphere anywhere -- into city or rural air. Air currents are arbitrary; emissions are carried far & wide; this is a GLOBAL problem, not a "backyard" problem. For more info, see the "Dioxin Documentation", "Wood Smoke is Rich in Dioxins and PCB's", "Saddled with Level of Dioxin, Town Considers an Odd Ally: The Mushroom", "I-Team Update: Secrets in the Soil", "Dioxin and Breast Milk: the French Island Incinerator", "The Inuit's Struggle with Dioxins and Other Organic Pollutants."