Burning garbage? Chicken poop? Your state could be getting renewable energy from nasty sources.

Drive down Interstate 95 through Baltimore and you can’t miss the Wheelabrator trash incinerator, its smokestack emblazoned with the city’s name. The Charm City’s single largest source of industrial air pollution churns out well over 600,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually.

In 2017, those emissions were equivalent to what’s given off by more than 130,000 cars driven for a year. It is also one of Maryland’s major sources of nitrogen oxides — a principal component of smog. One analysis estimates the facility’s air pollution kills an estimated 5.5 people per year.

James Alston is a resident of the South Baltimore neighborhood of Westport. He resides roughly five blocks from the incinerator in a home where his family has lived since 1967. From his front porch, the smokestack is clearly visible. On bad days, he says, a rancid overpowering odor wafts over from the facility to his community. When he learned how much pollution comes from the Wheelabrator site — and its potential health impacts — he thought of neighbors who had died. Could they have lived longer lives if it weren’t for the facility?

“They’re here, and they pollute, and from what I gather they don’t care,” Alston says. He wants the facility out of the majority-black community. “It’s environmental racial injustice as I see it,” he adds.

In the eyes of the state though, the energy Wheelabrator creates from burning as much as 2,250 tons of trash each day is considered renewable. Thus, the company gets subsidies — an estimated $3.4 million in 2015 — from utility companies and ratepayers as a result of the state’s renewable energy policy.

In a statement to Grist, Wheelabrator says the facility “adheres and exceeds strict federal and state air regulations established by both the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Maryland Department of the Environment.”

Trash incineration isn’t the only polluting industry that Maryland considers a renewable energy source. Poultry litter incineration and paper mill-waste burning are also lumped in alongside wind and solar energy, according to the state’s plan.

Read more: https://grist.org/article/renewable-energy-portfolio-standards-maryland-garbage-incineration/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=weekly&utm_content=the-stinkiest-dirtiest-nastiest-renewable-energy-you-never-heard-of%3Futm_medium%3Demail



More than 30 states categorize garbage incineration as a type of renewable energy. Grist / AP Photo / Carolyn Kaster, File

https://twitter.com/JillWineBanks/status/1078044838099120129

WHY I WORE IT
#JillsPins this week are trying to cheer you by countering all the negativity of Trump, from 2 children dying at the border, the worst stock market closing since the Depression, pending subpoena and indictments, Govt shutdown and whiny tweets from 45.

Every one of us will have a moment when global warming gets personal.

In early November, gale-force winds whipped a brush fire into an inferno that nearly consumed the town of Paradise, California, and killed at least 86 people.

By the second morning, I could smell the fire from one foot outside my door in Berkeley, some 130 miles from the flames. Within a week, my eyes and throat stung even when I was indoors.

Air quality maps warned that the soot-filled air blanketing the Bay Area had reached “very unhealthy” levels. For days, nearly everyone wore masks as they walked their dogs, rode the train, and carried out errands. Most of those thin-paper respirators were of dubious value. Stores quickly ran out of the good ones—the “N-95s” that block 95% of fine particles—and sold out of air purifiers, too.

People traded tips about where they could be found, and rushed to stores rumored to have a new supply. Others packed up and drove hours away in search of a safe place to wait it out. By the time my masks arrived by mail, I was in Ohio, having decided to move up my Thanksgiving travel to escape the smoke.

Climate change doesn’t ignite wildfires, but it’s intensifying the hot, dry summer conditions that have helped fuel some of California’s deadliest and most destructive fires in recent years.

I’ve long understood that the dangers of global warming are real and rising. I’ve seen its power firsthand in the form of receding glaciers, dried lake beds, and Sierra tree stands taken down by bark beetles.

This is the first time, though, that I smelled and tasted it in my home.


Read more: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612658/the-day-i-tasted-climate-change/



A firefighter searches for human remains in a trailer park destroyed in the Camp Fire last month.
JOHN LOCHER | AP

(NBC) - Ford Motor Company is recalling 874,000 pickup trucks in North America due to fire risks.

The second largest automaker says the issue involves an engine block heater cable.

The recall covers several years of F150 and Super Duty trucks including 2015 through 2019 Ford F150 Trucks, along with the 2017 through 2019 Ford F250 Super Duty, F350 Super Duty, F450 Super Duty and F550 Super Duty pickup trucks.

Ford says water and contaminants can get into the engine block heater cable's splice connector, causing corrosion, damage and potentially fire.

Ford says it is aware of reports of three fires in Canada linked to the issue, but so far no reports of accidents or injuries.

The recall covers 410,000 vehicles in the United States and about 464,000 in Canada.

Ford dealers will inspect the engine block heater cable and replace it if necessary.


Short article, no more at link: https://www.kwqc.com/content/news/Ford-recalls-874000-trucks-due-to-fire-risks-503329671.html

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