(Source: MIRS.news, Published 10/27/2023) Facilities turning municipal trash into energy, like locally-run trash incinerators, would be permitted under Senate Democrats' "clean energy" legislation if they're operating ahead of the bills' effective date.
On Thursday, legislation obligating electric companies to run 100% on "clean energy" by 2040 passed in the Senate on a party-line vote. Under SB 271 specifically, which sets the deadlines for electric companies regulated by the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC), a provider's renewable portfolio standard must make up 15% of its energy sources through 2029 – until needing to make up 50% from 2030 through 2034.
While a renewable portfolio standard can include wind and solar energy and hydropower, it can also feature energy coming from a municipal trash incinerator that's already been operating.
"One of the things that we were really focusing on was how do we expand renewable energy? How do we make sure that we make a complete shift to the clean energy future?" Sen. Sam Singh (D-East Lansing), one of the lead sponsors of the Senate Democrats' package, told MIRS.
"There are some items that were…part of the 2016 law that are a very small part of the energy production in our state, that we did not touch (and) allowed to kind of continue in that space. But our focus really was: how do we take down coal? How do we look at natural gas as we go into the future with at least carbon capture?"
In Michigan's 2016 energy statute dealing with renewable energy standards and renewable energy credit portfolios, incinerators handling municipal solid waste were authorized as part of the renewable energy system.
On Thursday evening, however, Senate Republicans viewed this area in the legislation as a special "carve out" for Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks (D-Grand Rapids), whose district is home to Michigan's one commercially available municipal solid waste incinerator.
According to the Kent County Department of Public Works, the county's 33-year-old Waste to Energy Facility generates electricity for 11,000 homes, and recovered more than 136,000 tons of scrap steel that would not have been recycled otherwise.
By November 2009, following 20 years of operations, the facility had processed more than 3 million tons of solid waste, with one ton being equal to burning 1.7 barrels of oil.
One could say the Waste to Energy Facility does not compare to the now-demolished trash incinerator in Detroit in terms of receiving noteworthy community opposition and being a serious source of air pollution and health concerns. Ahead of being imploded in this past June, the controversial incinerator in Detroit was linked to discharging sulfur dioxide and carbon monoxide into the nearby neighborhoods, heightening asthma rates among the 22,000 individuals who resided within a 1.5 mile radius of the facility's smokestack in 2018.
But, on Thursday morning, Network Manager Andrea PIERCE of the Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition – which hosts a biennial summit on environmental justice and has three research projects affiliated with the University of Michigan – called for support for
SB 271 to be withdrawn.
"Many of our neighbors in Grand Rapids only learned about the language, including incinerators, in recent days. We have been ignored, misrepresented, and sidelined while the champions of this bill try to claim a 'climate win,'" Peirce said in a letter obtained by The Detroit News. "Now is a time of reckoning for those who will stand up for environmental justice in our state."
An official with the Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition has sent a letter to Democratic lawmakers in opposition to one of energy bills before the state Senate today, according to an email obtained by detroitnews: pic.twitter.com/KSDKabVExN
— Craig Mauger (@CraigDMauger) October 26, 2023
For House Minority Leader Matt Hall (R-Kalamazoo), the continuation of municipal incinerators under SB 271 could be an opportunity for Republicans in his chamber to make their demands in a negotiation for their support.
Overall, Hall says they're gonna have a lot of fun.
"Are some of these more liberal Democrats in the House gonna support things that allow incinerators? Or something that the utilities endorse when some of their environmental friends are telling them to oppose it?" Hall asked. "My guess is they're going to be fractured on this, just like they've been on every other issue, and they're going to need us, and it's going to have to be bipartisan."
But, Hall said common ground will not be found if the legislation's end goal is to ban natural gas.
Meanwhile, for Rep. Bill G. Schuette (R-Midland), the "carve-out" for incinerators might as well be a double-standard when he thinks about how the Midland Cogeneration Venture (MCV), which he says is Midland County's second largest taxpayer and stands to be negatively affected by the Senate Democrats' bills.
Schuette described to MIRS how MCV is the principal power provider for the Dow Chemical Company and an entire industrial park within Midland, using a gas and steam turbine to produce energy and generating more than 1,500 megawatts of electrical power hourly.
"Unfortunately, the legislation that was rammed through by Senate Democrats yesterday could very well shutter their operations with the limitations it puts in by 2040, to have 100% so called 'clean energy.' By closing the Midland Cogeneration Venture, not only are we going to be costing hundreds of jobs associated with the company, not only are we going to have a devastating impact on our tax base in our county…we're also going to be passing billions and billions of dollars of costs onto the customers in the Great Lakes Bay region," Schutte said.
He said he finds it pretty incredible Brinks was able to get a carve out for an incinerator in her district, but no exception for one of the state's largest energy providers out of Midland.
