12 Feb EPA Comfort Letter Provides Fuel Customers Added Assurance
An Environmental Protection Agency Comfort Letter recently issued regarding WastAway’s SE3™ fuel provides users solid assurances of regulatory compliance as a non-waste material, compatibility with fossil fuels, and significantly low levels of contamination.
“This means the EPA concurs with our product’s capability to more cleanly utilize coal fuel resources,” said WastAway CEO Mark Brown. “It specifically supports that combining our SE3™ high-BTU sustainable fuel with coal is good for the environment and good for extending the useful life of today’s generation and industrial boiler equipment.”
Federal designation as a non-waste fuel, and as a Non-Hazardous Secondary Material (NHSM), means users of SE3™ are not required to conform to onerous regulations concerning combustion of municipal waste or other RDF products derived from MSW. WastAway’s fuel has been processed and physically converted into a consistent, safe and pathogen-free product.
The EPA letter stated that the agency agrees that WastAway’s operations “will transform waste into a processed non-waste fuel appropriate for units designed to combust coal or wood and biomass.”
WastAway’s patented process also removes material that causes problems in ash that are usually associated with combustion of other fuels derived from waste. These inerts such as glass and metals can change the chemical composition of both residue and emissions. Both testing and combustion analysis prove those problems are mitigated with SE3™, and any inherent contaminants are comparable or lower than those in coal or wood/biomass combustion.
In a recent extensive Canadian test, cofiring in a 430 MW commercial generating plant showed WastAway’s fuel provided “a technically acceptable method of reducing CO2 emissions from coal… with minimal adverse effects to heat rate, performance, fly ash content or stack emissions.”
Canada’s Climate Change and Emissions Management Corporation (CCEMC) predicts replacing only 130 tons per day of coal from the same generation facility where the test was performed will result in over one million tons of CO2 avoidance.
Overview of WastAway’s SE3™ Fuel:
- High BTU value, cited at 9,000 by EPA report
- Combines well with coal or wood fuels
- Sterile and pathogen-free for safe handling
- Infinite shelf life, easily transported
- Consistent and predictable performance
- Customizable for moisture content and physical properties (pellets or Fluff)
- Amenable to most solid waste combustion equipment: Moving grate, fluidized bed, pulverized coal boilers, etc.
- Manufacturer-approved for 100% use in greenfield solid fuel boilers
- Economically competitive or superior to coal or wood pellets
- Provides up to 90% landfill diversion of MSW to help companies and communities achieve Zero Waste goals
- Measurable Green House Gas and CO2 reduction versus fossil fuels
- Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) available in many applications