Report Slams Biofuels Industry Impact on Air Quality

by Sean Reilly (Politico Pro E&E News PM) As the number of biofuel plants rise, a watchdog group called for a stronger permitting and enforcement regime. -- Biofuels plants are often large sources of hazardous air pollution, presenting a major concern as the number of plants grow while being subject to lax permitting requirements, according to a watchdog group that views the air quality impacts as a reason to halt favorable government treatment.

The group's study draws a contrast with traditional refineries, which are also significant sources of toxic air emissions but are typically subject to a stricter permitting regime.

“The environmental benefits of these government supports are questionable at best,” Courtney Bernhardt, research director for the Environmental Integrity Project, said Wednesday on a call with reporters.

The number of ethanol plants almost quadrupled in the first decade of this century and now total around 190, the group reported. At least another 32 biofuels projects are in the works, with the potential to expand capacity by one-third over last year’s levels, the report says. READ MORE

Excerpt from Environmental Integrity Project: This report makes the following recommendations to address the environmental problems caused by the biofuel boom:

1. END PERMITTING EXEMPTIONS FOR ETHANOL UNDER THE CLEAN AIR ACT: EPA should reverse its 2007 decision to relax major source permitting thresholds for ethanol manufacturers that allow these plants to emit more than twice the level of air pollution before needing to install better pollution controls.

2. BETTER MONITORING AND CONTROL OF HAZARDOUS AIR POLLUTANTS: EPA should require large biofuel plants to install air pollution monitoring devices along their fencelines to detect the levels of hazardous air pollutants, like acetaldehyde and acrolein, that could be drifting into nearby communities. EPA should also establish an ‘action level’ for these and other highly toxic pollutants, that, if exceeded, would obligate these facilities to identify the sources of the emissions and then fix the problems causing elevated concentrations.

3. STRONGER ENFORCEMENT OF AIR POLLUTION CONTROL PERMITS FOR BIOFUEL PLANTS: EPA and state regulatory agencies should more vigorously enforce air pollution control permits for biofuel plants, imposing penalties large enough to discourage future violations and protect downwind communities.

4. IMPROVE THE ACCURACY OF EMISSIONS REPORTING: Biofuels producers should be required, during the permit review and approval process, to expand their emissions testing and improve the accuracy of their pollution reporting to both EPA and the states.

5. END BIOFUEL SUBSIDIES AND MANDATES: Biofuels are growing at a rapid rate in part because of government funding and regulatory mandates for blending ethanol into gasoline. But the environmental benefits of these government supports are questionable at best. All existing subsidies and mandates for ethanol – including the renewable fuel standard – should be halted – and attention focused instead on clean energy sources like solar and wind and the infrastructure needed to support them. READ MORE

Excerpt from Iowa Capital Dispatch: An ethanol-producing facility in northeast Iowa expelled excessive pollutants into the air for several years that can cause cancers and other health effects, according to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.

“Actual harm to the environment and public health likely occurred,” the department said in a recent administrative order regarding POET Bioprocessing near Shell Rock.

The facility makes about 140 million gallons of ethanol each year, along with other products from the leftover materials of the fuel production.

The excessive pollution was tied to one of those additional products: a protein ingredient for animal feed.

The facility’s previous operator, Flint Hills Resources, installed the equipment that is used to extract the protein and began operating it in July 2020, the DNR order said. However, part of the system lacked sufficient pollution controls, which was discovered by POET in August 2023. POET had purchased the facility about two years earlier, but did not sample the emissions.

Flint Hills had underestimated the amount of pollutants in the ethanol-production leftovers that are used to produce the protein, said Mark Fields, a unit leader for the DNR’s Air Quality Bureau. Those pollutants were then expelled during the protein processing.

Fields said the issue was discovered with a similar system in another state, and POET shut down the production line and notified the DNR. The company later routed those emissions into an existing pollution-control system at the plant and fixed the problem.

But emissions tests after the production line was reactivated revealed the extent of the excessive pollution in the previous years: Its volatile organic compounds emissions were 27 times its permitted limit, and emissions of a hazardous, cancer-causing compound — acetaldehyde — were nearly nine times the limit.

The POET facility lies about two miles northwest of Shell Rock, and about five miles west of Waverly.

POET agreed to pay a $10,000 administrative fine, the DNR order said. It also will pay nearly $43,000 in fees that it owed the state for its underreporting of emissions in 2021 and 2022. READ MORE