The 2012 Maryland Energy Forum

by Bradley Frieze (Advanced Biofuels USA) On Wednesday, October 3^rd, four leading activists for the use of renewable energy sources held a forum at Frederick Community College. This ‘Maryland Energy Forum’ focused mainly on four present energy issues: hydrofracking, coal, trash incineration and wind energy.
Hydrofracking
Paul Roberts, a member of The Marcellus Shale Safe Drilling Initiative Advisory Commission spoke about the downfalls of hydrofracking to extract natural gas from the Marcellus Shale. Roberts, who lives in Garrett county (a prime candidate for fracking), was concerned about increased traffic past his home and business after talking with a company scouting for areas to set-up fracking operations. The company said that if fracking operations were to take place there, the operation would not take just one, but up to seven years and multiple wells to complete.
Currently, Governor O’Malley has enacted(?)an executive order to halt fracking and commission studies looking for safer ways to frack before natural gas extraction is allowed to take place in Maryland’s Marcellus Shale.
Hydrofracking is a dangerous operation that can leech into groundwater and poison the wells of those living near a fracking operation. To extract the gas from the shale, lots of water and chemicals are put into the well with incredible pressure, which allows the gas to then be piped up to the surface. “When all of those [harmful] chemicals are put into the ground,” Roberts says, “only about 20% of them return to the surface, and the rest stays underground; or at least [they] hope.” There have been many reports of methane contamination in drinking water throughout Pennsylvania due to natural gas extraction. Roberts suggests that there needs to be a law that says to the hydrofracking industry that, “[you] need to show us how to do this safely before it can happen.”
He also urged that there be more money invested in energy sources that are not ‘boom-and-bust’ such as the natural gas and coal industries. “Ultimately,” Roberts reports, “fracking cleanup funds end up coming from taxpayers once the fracking companies leave the area when the natural gas depletes.” Maryland is the only state with gas in the Marcellus Shale that does not frack, and Paul Roberts demands that that remains true, at least until the industry can prove that hydrofracking is safe.
Coal
Eric Schaeffer, the Executive Director of the Environmental Integrity Project was next to take to the podium. His specialty is the coal industry and its negative effects on the environment and economy as well as its lack of sustainability.
Schaeffer opened up by discussing the large environmental footprint that the coal industry leaves behind.. Schaeffer reviewed how coal plants are major contributors to fine particle matter as well as smog and are linked to heart disease and lung cancer. Schaeffer says, “The minute you take away coal plants from an area, the air quality immediately increases.” Onehundredthirty million tons of coal ash containing arsenic, cadmium and lead are dumped into randomly dug holes in the ground, yearly, without any thought. The toxic ash then leaks into the groundwater surrounding the ash pit and ultimately into local wells. To clean up old mines and ash pitstakes millions of dollars that mostly come from taxpayer’s pockets, as the coal companies are not required by law to clean them.
Schaeffer alleged that, “42-43% of this nation’s energy comes from coal, but it has steadily been dropping due to better, sustainable alternatives, more efficient energy usage.” Schaeffer states that he’s against the use of using pollution buffers to limit harmful waste from coal plants, but that it is better to completely ‘phase them out ‘altogether as “their time has passed”. Schaeffer also stated that war on coal is a difficult battle, and that President Obama has recently jumped on coal companies because they have failed to meet pollution deadlines that were originally set in the 1980’s. Because of a lack of pressure from the government in past years, they haven’t cleaned them up. Slowly but surely, coal companies are starting to meet those standards, but it is not enough to continue to use coal as a prime energy source.
Incineration
Dan Andrews took the stage next to address the forum about the ‘hot topic’ of incineration as a means of energy production. Dan Andrews is the Chairman of the Catoctin Group of the Sierra Club, one of the most influential grassroots organizations in the United States. He is also on the Board of Directors for Sustainable Living Maryland and WasteNot! Carroll and WasteNot! Frederick. He spoke of the proposed Frederick Incinerator that would be capable of burning thousands of tons of trash per day and produce only 45 megawatts of electricity.

Andrews told the forum that the incinerator is a, “financial disaster…based on inaccurate data.” And that by building the incinerator you would be, “essentially turning Frederick into ‘trash-central’.” He also stated that the incinerator would produce along with the electricity, 150,000 tons of toxic ash considered hazardous to the environment, as well as 700,000 tons of carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, mercury and particulate matter annually. The incinerator would also take millions of dollars to build, which would be coming straight from taxpayer’s pockets and not only would it take money, but also the incinerator itself takes a lot of electricity to power to power the incineration process, so its net energy production end up being low compared to the costs.

The latest information on the Frederick incinerator is that a group commissioned to study alternatives has been given seven months to do all of the research they need to and produce viable alternatives. Their recommendations will be given most likely during early November of this year. The latest in alternatives right now is rather than burn the trash, it is suggested that a compost facility be built and a materials recovery facility also be built to pull out recyclables from trash and increase recycling staff to decrease trash flow into the local landfills.
Wind Power
Lastly, Mike Tidwell, the Executive Director of The Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN), a non-profit organization fighting global warming in Maryland, Virginia and D.C. took the stage to discuss wind power as a viable form of energy.. Tidwell gave many reasons that Marylanders should be behind off-shore wind power, and argued that it is the best option for sustainable energy. Tidwell stated that wind power was zero net pollution, will create over 1500 jobs in Maryland, is completely sustainable and will save Maryland billions of dollars in health costs due to pollution from other energy producing industries over its lifetime.
There are a few drawbacks to wind power, however. First, wind power is very unpredictable, and power can only be generated if there is enough wind energy to turn the turbines. Second, the energy made from wind turbines cannot be stored; the consumer must immediately use it. If there is power being generated but no demand for it, the energy is lost. Also, if wind energy were to be applied to a large scale, the electrical infrastructure throughout Maryland would have to be almost completely reconfigured.
From listening to the presentations at the Maryland Energy Forum, it is clear that Maryland’s sources of energy are flawed in different ways. It seems that there must be an alternative that is completely sustainable, produces the most energy with the least waste, and is actually viable to power a whole state, nonetheless the whole country.