EPA to declare coal ash a hazardous waste

• December 15, 2009
• Michael Niven
• Power Daily Northeast

Caryl Pfeiffer, director of corporate fuels and byproducts for E.ON
U.S., told attendees at a recent industry conference that she believed
EPA would make its hazardous waste declaration on coal ash Dec.
10. The announcement is likely to come during a hearing to be held by
the U.S. Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Energy and
Environment, which is examining the impacts of coal combustion waste
on drinking water and public health.

EPA announced in March that it was drafting a proposed rule regarding
the handling of coal ash and other combustion waste produced by power
plants, an effort sparked by a massive coal ash spill at the Tennessee
Valley Authority's Kingston coal station in December 2008. Pfeiffer
said the writing was on the wall after the Kingston spill, which she
referred to as "the coal-fired power industry's Three Mile Island."

Pfeiffer warned that EPA's anticipated new stance on coal ash would
have widespread implications on the power industry, especially those
companies that store coal ash in wet impoundment ponds like the one
that failed at Kingston. "It's actually not a big thing for new coal-
fired power plants because you simply build the ash disposal pond with
a double liner" to prevent potential dangerous pollutants from
leeching into groundwater, but "it is going to be a hell of a problem
for every existing ash pond in this country," Pfeiffer said Dec. 8
during the Coal Trading Association's annual conference in New York
City.

E.ON U.S., which owns prominent coal-fired utilities Louisville Gas
and Electric Co. and Kentucky Utilities Co., will likely comply with
EPA's anticipated coal ash rule by storing its ash via dry methods in
a double-lined holding facility, Pfeiffer said.

One of the biggest impacts from EPA's expected new rule is that it
will likely destroy the ability of power generators to dispose of coal
ash through beneficial uses such as cement manufacturing and road
construction. Pfeiffer said the industry has a great track record of
beneficially reusing ash in various capacities, but if the EPA
proceeds with its ruling, those beneficial uses will dry up because
cement companies and other partners would not be able to use a
hazardous waste in their products.

Pfeiffer noted that at LG&E's Trimble County coal plant in Kentucky,
nearly 100% of the facility's coal ash is used for beneficial
purposes, which dramatically reduces costs associated with ash
disposal. That would all change under the EPA's plan, she said. "Not
only would we have much higher volumes of ash to dispose of than
before, but it will cost much more to dispose of under this new plan,"
she said.

As an example of the potentially big swing in costs associated with
ash disposal, a Mirant Corp. executive attending the conference said
it costs the company roughly $60 per ton to dispose of coal ash from
one of its plants that generates ash that must be removed using
special handling. At E.ON U.S. plants that dispose of coal ash for
beneficial uses, the disposal costs are usually in the neighborhood of
$4 per ton, Pfeiffer said.

EPA jeopardizing 'economics' of using coal The ongoing challenges to
the coal-fired power industry do not end with EPA's anticipated coal
ash ruling, said Pfeiffer, who warned that a series of actions by the
agency has left the industry in more dire straits than ever before.
Among the agency's potentially costly proposals is an expected
tightening of wastewater discharge standards for coal-fired power plants.

EPA announced in September that it expects to overhaul federal rules
governing effluent limitation standards for coal-fired power plants to
reduce pollution and better protect the nation's waterways.

Effluent guidelines are national standards, based on the performance
of treatment and control technologies, for wastewater discharges to
surface waters. The agency last amended its wastewater discharge rules
in 1982.

"There's not one of my plants that could meet the proposed limits
being talked about by EPA without massive investment in wastewater
discharge equipment that we don't currently use in our industry
because of the [high] volume of water [that is released]," said
Pfeiffer, who noted that such investments would likely be too costly
to make at older, smaller coal plants.

EPA is also in the process of drafting a new mercury control rule for
coal-fired power plants that could have massive ramifications on the
industry, she said. As part of that rule, which would replace the
scrapped Clean Air Mercury Rule, EPA is expected to implement maximum
achievable control technology, or MACT, requirements for mercury and
other pollutants. The MACT component of the rule, Pfeiffer said, would
require every coal-fired unit in the United States of at least 25 MW
to meet emissions standards reflecting an average of the nation's top
12% of the best-performing power plants. In most cases that would mean
plants would have to be equipped with a minimum of an electrostatic
precipitator for particulate matter control, an SCR to control NOx
emissions and wet flue gas desulfurization equipment to scrub SO2
emissions.

EPA is shooting to have the mercury rule in place by 2012, and coal
plants would have three years to meet the new MACT standards, Pfeiffer
said. She estimated that the expected MACT standards would render
approximately 800 coal-fired units, representing roughly 40,000 MW and
84 million tons of annual coal burn, uneconomic in the United States.

"These rulings are effectively taking the economic value out of using
coal in our industry by layering in these increased costs on coal
plants," said Pfeiffer, who also pointed to EPA's Dec. 7 ruling that
declared CO2 emissions a threat to public health. She later added that
EPA's slew of actions could permanently threaten the future of new
coal-fired generation in the United States. "I'll submit that we have
built the last new coal-fired station in this country," she said.

"If you're not already permitted and under construction, then you're
done."