Comparison of Pennsylvania Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) Legislation -- Fuels / Technologies

Click here to view Comparison of Incentives and Mechanisms

	Fuel / Technology	SB 962	HB 2250	SB 1030	Rendell / McGinty Draft	Goal
	Wind Power	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
	Solar Photovoltaic	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
	Solar Thermal	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
	Geothermal	Y	Y	Y	Y	n/a
	Low-Impact Hydropower	N	Y	Y	Y	Y (if "low-impact" is defined and if no NEW dams are allowed)
	Ocean-Based	Y	N	N	N	Y
	Digester Gas	Y (size limit and no new CAFOs)	Y	Y	Y	Y (size limit and no new CAFOs)
	Landfill Gas	Y (if filtered)	Y	Y	Y	Y (if filtered)
	Forest Wood / "Energy Crops"	N	Y	Y	Y	N
	Agricultural Crop Residue	N	N	?	?	N
	Animal Factory Wastes	N	N	?	?	N
	Paper & Lumber Mill Wood Wastes	N	N	N	?	N
	Construction / Demolition Wood Waste	N	N	N	?	N
	Sewage Sludge	N	N	N	?	N
	Tires	N	N	N	?	N
	Municipal Solid Waste (Trash)	N	N	N	?	N
	Waste Coal	N	Y	Y	Y	N
	Coal-Bed Methane	N	N	N	Y	N
	Fuel Cells	Y (if hydrogen produced cleanly)	N	N	Y	Y (if hydrogen produced cleanly)
	Anything else the PUC wants to add	N	N	Y	N	N
	Carbon Offsets	N	N	Y	Y	N
	Energy Efficiency	Y	N	Y	Y	Y

Wind power is included in all of the proposed RPS legislation. Pennsylvania is already the largest wind power state east of the Mississippi, with 6 wind farms producing 129 megawatts and many more wind farms proposed. According to the Department of Energy, Pennsylvania has enough wind potential to produce 15% of the entire state's electricity consumption.

Wind can play a major role in meeting the RPS requirements, particularly if the RPS focuses on development of new renewables by placing a limit on the amount of existing capacity that can be counted. Will will also do well if it is not forced to compete with the burning of unfiltered toxic landfill gas.

Careful national statistics show that, on average, wind turbines kill about two birds per turbine per year. At that rate, America could get half its electricity from wind power and the bird fatalities would be less than 1 percent of the number of birds U.S. housecats kill each year. The American Bird Conservancy, one of the most respected bird groups in America, has endorsed properly sited wind farms and shows that burning fossil fuels does far more damage to bird populations than wind power. For data on bird and bat kills at wind turbines and for recommendations on how to reduce these impacts, see the American Bird Conservancy Wind Energy Policy.

Recommendations: Maryland's RPS law, passed in mid-2004, contains small, but meaningful credit multipliers for wind power and also requires development of wind turbine siting standards before July 2, 2006. This could serve as a model for Pennsylvania's RPS legislation. See the MD RPS wind siting language.

Solar Photovoltaic and Solar Thermal

Solar Photovoltaic (PV) is the "solar panel" technology that turns solar energy into electricity. Solar Thermal concentrates solar power to heat water or create steam for electric generation. Solar PV and solar thermal technologies are included in all of the proposed RPS legislation. Solar power has virtually unlimited potential, as it can be implemented on roofs and other built surfaces (even in solar shingles, windows and highway sound barriers).

The cost of solar technologies continue to drop over time, but still are too costly to compete with wind and other "renewable" energy technologies. Solar will simply not play a part in the RPS without specific policies included in the legislation.

Recommendations: There are three specific policies that can help solar power play a role in the RPS. In order of importance, they are:

• Solar Share

  A solar share is essentially a requirement that solar play a role in the RPS. The New Jersey law is the best model for Pennsylvania, since it favors small-scale, distributed generation, offering increased reliability and security for the grid. Solar power advocates are recommending a solar share of a quarter of one percent of our energy coming from solar by the end of a 10-year time frame.

• Dedicated Compliance Fee

  The strategic application of compliance fees can also help ensure fuel-mix diversity. Compliance fees are fees paid for non-compliance with the RPS. These fees are used to create a Clean Energy Fund that gives grants out for renewable technology development. Rather than allow these funds to be used for any technology, it’s wise to limit the use of the grants to the technologies needing the most support. The Rendell administration’s draft as well as the new Maryland RPS limit the use of fees to benefit only Tier 1 renewables. SB 962 goes further and limits it to only solar power, since that is the technology in most need of support.

• Extra Credit / Credit Multipliers

  To balance the playing field, some state RPS laws contain extra credit multipliers for certain technologies. Arizona, Maryland and New Mexico’s laws provide extra credits for solar, allowing solar power to qualify for double or triple credits. SB 962 offers a triple credit. Since this credit applies only to the premium (approx. 2 cents on top of each 6 cent/kwh of electricity), the credit multiplier isn't likely to be enough to make solar competitive in the short term. Long term (several years from now), as the cost of solar nears the cost of other renewables, the credit multiplier can help make solar even more competitive.

Since geothermal resources in the eastern U.S. are very limited, geothermal power isn't viable as an electricity-production method in the mid-Atlantic region. However, geothermal heat pumps can be used as an energy efficiency measure that uses ground temperature to pre-heat or pre-cool water. Although geothermal is included in all proposed RPS legislation, it's unreasonable to expect it to be used.

Recommendations: Geothermal heat pumps can play a significant role if energy conservation and efficiency measures are included in the second tier.

Three of the four pieces of RPS legislation include "low-impact" hydroelectric power as a renewable energy source. Since the term "low-impact" is left undefined in each bill, this risks allowing a substantial amount of existing generating capacity to flood the RPS, watering down its impact. There is a non-profit organization called the Low-Impact Hydropower Institute (LIHI), which has developed criteria that should be used to define the term. The RPS legislation ought to refer to these criteria in defining the term "low-impact" so that it’s not left up to the PUC to come up with their own definition.

It is also necessary to ensure that no new dams are considered "low-impact." The "low-impact" criteria exist to mitigate the damage that dams do to river ecosystems. Expanding capacity at existing dams by adding new turbines should be the only means to qualify as "new" under the RPS.

If hydropower were allowed in the RPS without the "low-impact" limitation, there is sufficient existing hydroelectric generation in the PJM grid to fill more than three times the RPS requirements.

Recommendations: "Low-impact" ought to defined as hydropower generated at a facility built before January 1, 2005 which meets the standards of the Low Impact Hydropower Institute and which is no larger than 30 megawatts.

There are several methods of generating renewable electricity by harvesting the power of waves, tides and ocean currents. A New Jersey-based company, Ocean Power Technologies, has already demonstrated one type of wave power generation off of the coast of southern New Jersey. It may even be possible to harvest some of this power on the shores of Lake Erie.

Read about HydroVenturi's plans for tidal power for San Francisco.

Recommendations: The Maryland RPS law, as well as SB 962 include these technologies, defined as "ocean, including energy from waves, tides, currents, and thermal differences." In case it's possible to harness this power on Lake Erie, the term may need to be broadened, so that it's not limited to oceans.

All RPS proposals include digesters. SB 962 limits it to animal waste, yard waste and food waste, provided that animal waste digesters are reasonably-sized and are not being used to proliferate factory farms. The other proposals simply include the term "biologically derived methane gas" without any further definition.

Anaerobic digesters compost (or "digest") organic waste in a machine that limits access to oxygen (hence the "anaerobic" part), encouraging the generation of methane and carbon dioxide by microbes in the waste. This digester gas (which also comes contaminated with hydrogen sulfide) is then burned as fuel to make electricity. Digesters aren't widely used yet, but tend to be used for sewage sludge at waste water treatment plants and for animal waste on farms. Digesting manure doesn't avoid the need to apply that manure as fertilizer, since the manure still exists and has to go somewhere (it doesn't magically disappear and turn into energy).

Digesters are only marginally effective at reducing problems with odors, pathogens and greenhouse gas emissions from animal waste or sewage sludge, but they are incapable of making any chemical contaminants in the wastes go away. Digesters aren't emissions-free. They are known to emit nitrogen and sulfur oxides, particulate matter and carbon monoxide.

Living next to a digester could be less than pleasant, particularly if located in a residential neighborhood or if the facility would be large -- attracting manure-hauling trucks from around the region. Some proposals for digesters have been fought off by community opposition.

Small, family farmers in Pennsylvania are vanishing as large industrial corporate factory farms move into the state. Large anaerobic digesters are used to make these factory farms more viable. Consequently, advocates of small family farms and of sustainable agriculture see digesters as a Trojan horse that pretends to solve a waste management problem while enabling factory farms to invade the state. If digesters are to be included in the RPS, it’s important that there be a size limitation and that they not be permitted to process waste from new factory farms.

Recommendations: If digesters are included in the RPS, there be the following stipulations:

• For animal waste digesters, that there be a size limit and a prohibition on handling waste from new factory farms. See SB 962 for a model definition.
• For sewage sludge, that the digested sludge be landfilled, preferably in a dedicated (monofill) cell of a landfill.

Learn more about concerns with large-scale animal waste digesters from the GRACE Factory Farm Project.

Landfill gas is included in all of the proposed RPS legislation, but SB 962 allows only clean (filtered) landfill gas to qualify.

Landfill gas is far more than methane. Landfill gas is contaminated with hundreds of toxic chemicals, including mercury. At landfill gas-to-electricity projects around the country, these toxins are not filtered out before being burned. Consequently, landfill communities are exposed to the toxic pollutants in landfill gas. Some of these contaminants can be destroyed or made less dangerous when burned, but the opposite is also true -- some extremely toxic compounds, like dioxins and furans -- are created when landfill gas is burned. For these reasons, landfill communities in Pennsylvania have rejected the notion that burning landfill gas is "green" or "renewable" energy. The many communities in Pennsylvania that are dealing with local landfills would benefit from an RPS that only allows landfill gas to be eligible for RPS credits if the toxins are properly filtered and isolated prior to burning. Filtering technologies are already being used at landfills in the Pittsburgh area to clean up landfill gas to natural gas pipeline standards. Other projects, such as the Susbus project in the UK have used carbon filters to capture the toxins from landfill gas, then treat them as hazardous waste.

Recommendations: If landfill gas is included in the RPS, bringing a significant subsidy to an already mature industry, it would be wise to ask for something in return. We recommend ensuring that landfill gas will only qualify as a renewable resource if proper care is taken to filter the toxins from the gas before burning it. SB 962 uses the following definition: combustion of landfill gas which has been filtered to remove halogenated contaminants and mercury and where these contaminants are filtered into a solid medium not destined for thermal treatment or incineration. If unfiltered landfill gas is allowed in the RPS, it should be placed in a second tier, since there is a fair amount of existing generation using unfiltered landfill gas and this shouldn't be allowed to compete with Tier 1 renewables.

Read more about landfill gas here:

• Primer on Landfill Gas as "Green" Energy
• Evaluating Subsidies for Landfill Gas to Energy Programs
• An Analysis of Tax Credits for Landfill Gas Energy Recovery
• Landfills Make Mercury More Toxic (Science News)

Three of the four pieces of RPS legislation include "biomass energy" as a renewable energy source and exclude wastes, leaving the definition to include any crops or trees grown, cut and burned for electricity. HB 2250 and SB 1030 describe it as "sustainable biomass energy" but fail to define "sustainable."

This can prove very damaging for forests and marginal agricultural lands. Burning trees and crops can also introduce many unexpected toxic and genetic pollution issues.

Toxics:

Herbicides and the use of sewage sludge or animal wastes as fertilizer can introduce toxins to the plants that would later be burned, increasing the air pollution risks from energy crop burning. The chlorinated pesticide 2,4-D (half of the chemical mixture of Agent Orange) has been used in energy crop projects. Poultry litter (often contaminated with arsenic) has been used as fertilizer on such projects. Effluent from sewage treatment plants has been used on energy crop projects as well.

In an effort to increase the profitability of energy crops, some researchers are working to merge the biomass industry with phytoremediation (the use of trees to suck toxic contaminants out of the ground). Trees in these projects are used to accumulate arsenic from sites contaminated with wood-treatment chemicals, only to release these toxins back into the environment when the trees are burned as “renewable” energy.

Even without these sources of contamination, plants absorb chlorine from salts in the ground and it concentrates in the leaves of trees like switchgrass. The Chariton Valley Biomass Project in Iowa is one of the nation’s leading research programs into the co-firing of switchgrass in coal power plants. Their tests have shown that the switchgrass has chlorine content seven times higher than the coal they were burning it with. The chlorine level in switchgrass is also higher than wood. This can be expected to cause higher emissions of hydrochloric acid gases and ultra-toxic dioxins when burned. A study of co-firing wheat straw in Idaho showing that the presence of chlorine caused corrosion beneath slag deposits on boiler tubes.

Energy crops suffer from a fundamental contradiction. If the crops are contaminated in any way, it’s inappropriate to burn them. If they are uncontaminated, the most appropriate thing to do is to compost them.

Abuse of Land:

Using agricultural lands to grow fuel for power plants is a poor use of land and water resources. Rather than use prime agricultural land, energy crops like switchgrass or poplar trees are typically grown on highly erodable Conservation Reserve Program lands. The Conservation Reserve Program compensates farmers for taking marginal, highly erodable land out of production and planting native grasses and vegetation in the place of the usual production crops, usually in ten-year contracts. It contradicts the purpose of the program to use these fragile lands to grow these so-called energy crops.

Since it’s not economically viable to grow crops just to burn them, government researchers have sought to cut as many corners as possible to justify the creation of an energy crop industry. Some have been working on genetically engineering trees for this purpose, introducing a host of potential problems like genetic drift and increased herbicide use. The potential impact to our forests is also a great concern. The RPS proposed in the national energy bill prohibits the use of timber from old growth forests, recognizing this concern, as does Maryland’s new RPS law.

Recommendations: All solid fuel burning should be disallowed in the RPS. If "sustainable biomass" is included, however, the term ought to be defined to safeguard against abuses that could discredit the program. The following definition could be used:

Sustainable biomass energy: the term includes landscape or right-of-way-tree trimmings, or organic material from a plant or tree that is planted for the purpose of being used to produce energy at a facility which became operational before December 31, 2004. The term does not include:

1. vegetation produced on Conservation Reserve Program lands, national or state forests or publicly-owned roadless areas;
2. genetically modified organisms;
3. plants or trees used in phytoremediation projects;
4. plants or trees which have been exposed to sewage sludge or other wastes used as fertilizer;
5. plants or trees which have been exposed to pesticides or herbicides that are formulated with halogens or heavy metals; or
6. municipal solid, industrial, residual or any hazardous waste burned for the generation of electric energy.

Agricultural Crop Residue

The burning of agricultural crop residue is not clearly included in any of the proposed legislation. In SB 1030, the bill contradicts itself by including agricultural waste, yet banning residual waste incineration. All agricultural waste is legally defined as residual waste. Residual waste includes a wide range of industrial wastes and it is vital to exclude the incineration of these dangerous waste streams. If "agricultural waste" is allowed to be incinerated as renewable energy, it needs to be specified that the intent is for only vegetative crop wastes and not animal wastes. There is a proposal by a British corporation to burn poultry litter (manure and bedding from poultry factories in Maryland. This waste has been found by the federal government to have significant levels of arsenic in it, from the use of arsenic-containing growth promoters in the poultry industry. It is unsafe to burn poultry litter and the RPS language should be clear if agricultural wastes are to be included, to limit it to plant matter.

Recommendations: If an exclusion is to be made for agricultural waste, it's important that this be defined so that it doesn't permit unintended waste streams to be incinerated for electric power generation. Using the term "agricultural crop residue" would be far better than "agricultural waste," since the broader term "agricultural waste" could be used to include the direct incineration of animal wastes, like poultry litter.

Incineration of municipal and residual wastes is highly polluting and should never be considered renewable. Whether it's trash, tires, sewage sludge or other industrial wastes, there are many toxins in these waste streams and these wastes are better off reused, recycled, composted or even landfilled than converted to toxic ash and toxic air emissions, including heavy metals and dioxins. New York State, in the development of their state RPS, chose not to pursue trash incineration as a renewable energy source, despite the fact that the state has twice as many trash incinerators as Pennsylvania does.

Recommendations: All of the proposed RPS legislation that allows solid fuel combustion (a.k.a. "biomass"), specifically excludes the burning of municipal, residual and hazardous wastes. This language ought to be retained.

One potential loophole lies in the Rendell / McGinty Draft, where waste streams may be included in Tier 1 via the "biomass energy" part of the definition, depending on whether the exclusion of "solid waste" incineration applies to the full definition or just the "energy from solid waste" sub-point. It seems that the intent is to exclude solid wastes, but this ought to be clarified, particularly if the term "biomass energy" is left undefined.

Pennsylvania already has 14 waste coal burners, about half of the national total, and nearly all of the power plants that burn waste coal as their primary fuel are in this state. In addition, Reliant has built the nation’s largest waste coal burner, coming online in Indiana County. This in an established polluting industry that doesn't deserve subsidies.

Waste coal is dirtier than normal coal. Fossil fuels have no place in a renewable portfolio standard. Thirteen other states have RPS laws and none of them allow fossil fuels to qualify. Including waste coal in the legislation is a sure way to make the legislation so controversial as to ruin its chances of passage.

HB 2250 doesn't include waste coal explicitly, but it does include the undefined term "energy from waste" in the bill's definition of renewables which (given the types of waste excluded) can only mean waste coal. SB 1030 also includes the "energy from waste" loophole, allowing waste coal to be considered renewable in the first tier, while also including new waste coal burners in a second tier which the bill describes as "environmentally-beneficial resources." The Rendell / McGinty draft allows waste coal only in a second tier, and limits it to waste coal from refuse piles produced prior to 1982.

Learn more about "energy from waste" loophole here.

Learn more about waste coal here.

Recommendations: Eliminate fossil fuels (waste coal and coal-bed methane) from the RPS.

Coal-bed methane is natural gas -- a fossil fuel -- that is trapped in coal seams. Coal-bed methane extraction is very destructive and is linked with soil and well water contamination, increased risks of mine fires, buildup of explosive gases under buildings and homes, subsidence, noise pollution and decreased property values.

Some have claimed that coal-bed methane is included as part of the "biologically-derived methane gas" term in the definitions of "renewable resources" in HB 2250 and SB 1030, however it's a major stretch to consider fossil fuels to be "biologically-derived," since they haven't been part of a biological system for millions of years and are clearly not renewable.

Learn more about coal-bed methane here.

Recommendations: Eliminate fossil fuels (waste coal and coal-bed methane) from the RPS.

Fuel cells are only as clean as the source of the hydrogen. Currently, the primary source of hydrogen is from natural gas, a fossil fuel. For this reason, the two bills that include fuel cells limit their eligibility based on the hydrogen source.

Hydrogen fuel cells should not be seen as an electric generation technology, since they function more as an energy storage technology. The sustainability of fuel cells depends entirely on two things: where the hydrogen comes from and what energy sources are used to extract the hydrogen from the hydrogen source. The ideal would be for them to use wind and/or solar to split hydrogen from water. Another promising possibility is to extract hydrogen from microorganisms which, when deprived of oxygen, release hydrogen as a waste product. Currently, most hydrogen comes from steam reforming of natural gas, a fossil fuel. If hydrogen were obtained from water (the cleanest source), it takes more electricity to split water than is obtained when the hydrogen and oxygen are reassembled in the fuel cell. The "renewability" of fuel cells solely depends on these factors.

Any incentives to help bring down the high cost of fuel cells – and particularly the high cost of producing hydrogen from water or microorganisms – is a noble goal for an RPS. Fuel cells should be considered Tier 2 unless the hydrogen source involves no fossil fuels, carbon emissions or nuclear technologies.

Fuel cells, like solar PV, are quite expensive, though their cost is dropping. HB 2250 and SB 1030 don't include fuel cells at all. SB 962 includes them only if the hydrogen is produced cleanly and provides a triple credit. It defines "eligible fuel cells" as:

Electricity produced from fuel cells using hydrogen as a fuel. The hydrogen must be obtained from water or from a microbial process which does not release greenhouse gases. Any electricity or other energy source used to obtain the hydrogen must be derived from a clean energy resource. The term excludes hydrogen produced from nuclear technologies or obtained from fossil fuels or any other carbon-based fuel.

The Rendell / McGinty draft also includes fuel cells, but fails to clearly define the difference between the hydrogen source and the energy used to obtain the hydrogen from the source. It allows fuel cells in both tiers. The Tier 1 fuel cells must use resources in that tier, a tier which includes solid wastes, "biomass" (undefined) and methane sources (including coal-bed methane, a fossil fuel). This means that these materials could presumably be used as the hydrogen source, meaning that there would be carbon emissions associated with these fuel cells. All fuel cells that are even dirtier than those in Tier 1 would be included in Tier 2.

Since the cost of fuel cells would be even higher if the hydrogen were produced from clean energy resources (as required under SB 962), the triple credit may not be sufficient until the overall cost of wind, solar PV and of the fuel cells themselves come down further. Should these costs drop sufficiently in the next ten years, SB 962 will help by creating the incentives for the mass production that could drag the costs down further.

Recommendations: Both bills which include fuel cells make an attempt to push them in a clean direction in terms of hydrogen production. It's important that a distinction be made between the hydrogen source and the energy source used to produce the hydrogen. The SB 962 definition is more specific and cleaner. Regardless of which definition is used, fuel cells aren't likely to play a role in the RPS unless there are significant extra incentives built in for them.

SB 1030 includes provisions that allow the Public Utility Commission to add any technology they see fit to be eligible for inclusion in the RPS. This takes power away from the legislature and is asking for trouble. The only foreseeable reason to allow such a clause is to allow additional dirty, non-renewable technologies to be added to the RPS by PUC regulation.

Recommendations: Do not defer this power to the PUC.

SB 1030 and the Rendell / McGinty draft allow "carbon offsets" or "carbon sequestration." The specific methods to be used aren't defined in either proposal, leaving open a Pandora's box of possibilities. It would be problematic to promote such schemes as burying wood in landfills or planting monocrop plantations of genetically engineered trees, yet these concepts are on the horizon and could be used to abuse the notion of the RPS. A well-designed RPS is a carbon offset, since the new renewable generation would replace expensive natural gas or coal during peak power production times.

Recommendations: RPS legislation should not include any carbon offset ideas, since the most effective offset is to promote conservation, efficiency, and clean, renewable energy development.