It's not easy going green.
Just ask John Harrod Jr., who is helping guide the $250 million green makeover of UW-Madison's Charter Street Heating Plant.
The coal-burning plant will be converted so that it burns natural gas and cleaner, farm-grown fuels such as switchgrass. The changeover won praise from the plant's many critics, including the Sierra Club, which sued the university for violating the Clean Air Act. Gone will be the giant, dust-generating pile of coal that has become a symbol of the plant and its grimy history.
But Harrod, director of the UW-Madison Physical Plant, said getting rid of that coal pile and moving to cleaner biofuels has brought its own set of problems to solve — accommodating longer and more frequent trains, for example, or expanding the plant's footprint in its already squeezed urban setting, or figuring out new air standards for burning biofuels when even environmental regulators aren't quite sure what those final standards will be.
Those issues and others will be up for discussion Wednesday when UW-Madison hosts a hearing on the final version of the environmental impact statement for the project. The hearing is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. in Room 1106 of the Mechanical Engineering Building, 1513 University Ave.
"I would have to say there would have been easier ways to do this," said Al Fish, head of facilities and planning management for UW-Madison. "It's been an adventure." (More....)
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Charter Street coal plant embarks on its transition to cleaner fuels
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Air News (Region 5): EPA: Manitowoc and Door Counties in Wisconsin Now Meet Smog Standards
CHICAGO (May 7, 2010) — U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 5 plans to approve requests from the state of Wisconsin to redesignate the Manitowoc County and Door County areas to attainment of the national health-based eight-hour outdoor standard for ozone. Ozone is commonly referred to as smog.
EPA said three years of complete, quality-assured, outdoor air monitoring data for 2006, 2007 and 2008 show that the areas meet the standard. Complete quality-assured monitoring data for 2009 show that the areas continue to meet the standard.
EPA also proposes to approve Wisconsin’s plans to continue to meet the eight-hour health-based ozone standard in the areas through 2020 and to approve motor vehicle emission budgets for Manitowoc and Door counties.
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Monday, April 27, 2009
Approval and Promulgation of Air Quality Implementation Plans; Wisconsin; Finding of Attainment for 1-Hour Ozone for the Milwaukee- Racine, WI Area
PDF Version (2 pp, 82K, About PDF)
[Federal Register: April 24, 2009 (Volume 74, Number 78)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Page 18668-18669]
From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:fr24ap09-20]
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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
40 CFR Part 52
[EPA-R05-OAR-2008-0683; FRL-8895-9]
Approval and Promulgation of Air Quality Implementation Plans;
Wisconsin; Finding of Attainment for 1-Hour Ozone for the Milwaukee-
Racine, WI Area
AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
ACTION: Proposed rule.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
SUMMARY: EPA is proposing to approve a July 28, 2008, request from the
Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) that EPA find that the
Milwaukee-Racine, Wisconsin (WI) nonattainment area has attained the
revoked 1-hour ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS).
DATES: Comments must be received on or before May 26, 2009.
(More.....)
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