Development of renewable power projects, including biomass-fueled steam-cycle power plants, has gained momentum in the northeast states over the past few years resulting from enactment of renewable portfolio standards and other incentives. This paper provides an overview of the status of biomass power plant development in the Northeast with a focus on environmental permitting issues and trends based on recent experience. From an air quality permitting standpoint, the region's ozone non-attainment status affects precursor NOx emissions control and emissions offsets requirements. This has resulted in first-time application of advanced power generation and NO_x controls to biomass power plants, such as fluidized bed gasification and selective catalytic reduction systems. Recent tightening of the PM2.5 Ambient Air Quality Standard (AAQS) has also affected PM_(2.5) control requirements, stack heights and complexity of dispersion modeling analyses. Another hotly contested issue in the Northeast is the acceptability of construction and demolition (C&D) derived wood fuel, including its eligibility for renewable energy credits and its perceived air quality and ash disposal impacts. Regulatory agencies have reviewed emissions and ash test results from operating facilities combusting C&D wood and generally agree on the acceptability of C&D wood with appropriate controls (e.g., dry scrubbers with baghouses). Some states even encourage energy recovery as the most viable and environmentally-acceptable waste management option for C&D wood. Nevertheless, projects proposing to use C&D wood fuel have received heightened public scrutiny, resulting in project delays, increased permitting complexity, creation of state taskforces to study the issues, and even moratoriums or bans in one state. Other environmental permitting issues and trends explored in this paper, which may be less specific to biomass power plant development, but subject to increasing scrutiny, include water supply/diversion issues, steam condenser cooling technology selection for reduction of water consumption, and avoidance of wetlands and endangered species impacts.
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