CIBO: EPA Draft Industrial Boiler MACT Rule "Not Achievable As Drafted"

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Written by John Egan for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Tighter emission levels proposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) (Washington, D.C.) for industrial, commercial and institutional boilers are "not achievable as drafted," and the agency should seek more time to consider the avalanche of public comments it has received on its draft rule, Bob Bessette, president of the Council of Industrial Boiler Owners (CIBO) (Burke, Virginia), told Industrial Info late last week.

"Everyone wants clean air and improved environmental quality, but we also need a rule that allows us to stay in business," Bessette said in an interview. "It is possible to write an achievable and reasonable rule. But equipment vendors will not guarantee the performance standards as drafted by the EPA, and that's really scary." CIBO is an organization representing more than 100 industrial boiler owners, equipment suppliers, architect and engineering firms, and universities.

Bessette estimated that owners of industrial, commercial and institutional boilers would have to spend $20 billion to $50 billion to comply with the draft rules issued by EPA on Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) for industrial, commercial, and institutional boilers. Formally named the National Emission Standard for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP), the draft rule has come to be known as the Industrial Boiler MACT rule. The CIBO leader said that vendors had particular problems in meeting the proposed standard for carbon monoxide (CO).

The industrial boiler MACT draft rule could trigger as many as 10,000 pages of public comments by the close of business on August 23, the last day for public comments to be filed, Bessette said. CIBO's comments on this draft rule exceeded 125 pages, and he noted that more than 100 different sets of public comments had been filed as of late last week. The EPA is under a court order to issue final regulations by December 10, 2010. "There is no way the EPA could do all the things it needs to do and meet the December deadline," Bessette said.

"Every major industry is commenting on the industrial boiler MACT rule," he continued. CIBO and several other trade groups will ask the EPA to go to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and seek additional time to analyze the comments and data collected since the prior set of rules were drafted nearly a decade ago. "The EPA is going to need six months to go through new data and public comments," he told Industrial Info.

On April 29, 2010, in separate draft rules, the EPA proposed reducing emissions of toxic air pollutants from new and existing industrial boilers and process heaters. One set of rules would cover emissions from "major" sources and a second rule would cover emissions from "area" sources. A "major" source was defined as a facility that emits, or could emit, 10 or more tons per year of any single air toxic, or 25 tons per year of any combination of air toxics. An "area" sources was defined as a facility that emits, or could emit, less than 10 tons per year of any single air toxic, or less than 25 tons per year of any combination of air toxics.

The new draft rules were proposed by EPA following a federal court decision in 2007 that vacated EPA's air toxics emissions standards from 2004. The court required the EPA to complete a final rule for industrial, commercial, and institutional boilers by December 16, 2010.

The federal Clean Air Act requires EPA to develop and periodically update rules to reduce air toxics emissions from categories of facilities that emit specific hazardous air pollutants. Section 112 of the Clean Air Act requires the EPA to set national emission standards for hazardous air pollutants that reflect maximum achievable control technology (MACT)--essentially the best-in-class technology.

The EPA estimated that its April 2010 draft rules would apply to about 183,000 "area" source boilers at 92,000 separate facilities, and an additional 13,500 "major" sources. The EPA proposed allowing all "area" sources, and about 11,500 of the "major" sources, to meet new air toxics emissions standards through periodic equipment checkups. But for about 2,000 "major" industrial, commercial, and institutional boilers, stringent new emissions levels were proposed. The EPA estimated that about 600 coal-fired industrial boilers and another 400 biomass-fired industrial boilers would be "major" sources that were most directly affected by Industrial Boiler MACT rule.

By 2013, the EPA estimated that the new standards for "major" sources would prevent:

• 1,900 to 4,800 premature deaths
• 1,300 cases of chronic bronchitis
• 3,000 nonfatal heart attacks
• 3,200 hospital and emergency room visits
• 3,000 cases of acute bronchitis
• 250,000 days of missed work
• 33,000 cases of aggravated asthma
• 1,500,000 acute respiratory symptoms

The EPA valued these benefits at between $17 billion and $41 billion in 2013, far outweighing its estimated capital cost of approximately $9.5 billion. The agency developed a second set of costs and benefits for lowering emissions from "area" sources.

In its draft rule for "major" sources, the EPA proposed to reduce by about 75% the existing emissions levels for mercury, particulate matter and hydrogen chloride, and then added two new air toxics--carbon monoxide and dioxins/furans--to the regulations, Don Wolfe, P.E., a principal with Burns & McDonnell, said in an interview. "It was a significant ratcheting down of existing standards. And no one has a good feel for measuring emissions of CO and dioxins/furans during cycling periods," when boilers are ramping up or down. Emissions during these ramp-up and ramp-down periods can spike, exceeding allowable emission levels.

New industrial, commercial, and institutional boilers would be required to meet MACT standards for all five air toxics under the rules proposed by the EPA. Existing industrial, commercial, and institutional boilers would not be required to install MACT for all five pollutants, but would nonetheless be compelled to install some emissions-control equipment.

"We're not aware of any (CI&I) boiler in the U.S. that meets the proposed standards for all five emissions," said CIBO's Bessette. "These new standards are like colleges setting entrance requirements for new students. If colleges only accepted applicants who were the best in literature, math, football, swimming and chess, no one would go to college. And no one is going to build a new industrial boiler under these rules."

Burns & McDonnell's Wolf said that many existing industrial boilers could comply with the proposed regulations by installing a combination of fabric filter, dry scrubbers and sorbent injection, if they don't already have them.

But he said that industrial boiler owners are holding off installing emissions-control equipment at existing boilers until the rules are finalized to withstand the almost-inevitable court challenges. "A lot of boiler owners are still angry about getting hung out to dry in 2007, after the court struck down EPA's 2004 emissions rules," Wolf said in an interview. "Industrial boiler owners are holding back their capital spending because they don't want that spending to be invalidated by the litigation that will take place around this new set of rules."

"No matter what happens, we're all going to go to court on this," said CIBO's Bessette. Wolf agreed, adding that utility companies are closely monitoring the development of the Industrial Boiler MACT because they feel it will be a template of the agency's utility mercury emissions rule, which is due to be proposed early next year.

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