November 19, 2005

CA AB 1090 - Ed Begley, Jr. Supports Conversion Technology

California AB 1090 is crucially important state legislation in California to amend language in solid waste regulations (drafted in 1989). The current language impedes the development of conversion technologies in this state. The new language in the bill would reprioritize the waste management hierarchy to include conversion technologies, redefine these technologies more accurately, and allow jurisdictions that use conversion technology facilities to obtain diversion credit toward meeting their 50 percent diversion goal.

Below is noted environmentalist Ed Begley, Jr.'s letter to Chairperson Loni Hancock registering his arguments in support of California AB 1090...

I believe in the sustainability of our planet and I attempt to live my belief by consciously reducing, reusing and recycling. In this “built-in-obsolescence” society, reuse and recycle have limits, as do our landfills, necessitating that we find alternatives for managing our municipal solid waste. As much as I wish that we as a society could “get it” and all of us reduce, reuse and recycle for all of our benefit, I recognize that to be an unfulfilled dream. The next best thing is to recognize that science has found an answer in the alternative technologies described in AB 1090.

Alternative “conversion technologies,” or CTs, are no longer a figment of a creative mind and even though R & D for turning trash into fuel is incomplete, the technologies for creating green power from MSW are not only proven but is in operation right here in our own state of California (the fifth largest economic power in the world). However, those advanced technologies are being restricted by antiquated language of AB 939.

These technologies will be better served by the expanded language of AB 1090. When Byron Sheer authored AB 939 it was truly a giant step toward sustainability for our state and it set an excellent standard for the nation; but after time change is inevitable. It is now time for that progressive scientific change. By allowing AB 1090 to move forward you can take credit for a leap to sustainability as well as reducing landfill emissions and dependence on foreign or domestic oil.

China and India are on our doorstep announcing their intention to out-compete the U.S. through their advancements in technology. Please recognize that the antiquated paradigm of treating solid waste as “trash,” i.e., burying it in the ground creating pollution in the air, land and water, needs to change. That “trash” is a resource, a valuable commodity completing the cycle of birth to birth/cradle to cradle.

I recognize and applaud my colleagues in the environmental arena for the benefits their efforts and work over these many decades of Earth Days have accomplished. Perhaps the lack of a defining difference between pyrolytic conversion and incineration has clouded the ability of the non-scientific community’s mind to understand the difference. We now have that specific definition as a result of Juniper Consultancy of the United Kingdom stating that “conversion operations MUST enable sampling and (to the degree necessary) cleaning of the intermediary products. This one step making certain that intermediary gas, liquid and/or oil products from bio-conversion can be sampled and cleaned as necessary, prior to their use, enables the critical information feedback loop whereby contaminate management can be implemented in process.” International Environmental Services, a facility in Romoland, California, whose technology meets this definition, has all its testing data on record with the SCAQMD including a preliminary evaluation on its Health Risk Assessment as being less than one in a million.

More scientific information provided by the Argonne National Laboratory, America’s leading laboratory for the study of emissions from liquid fuels, reports that a gallon of cellulosic ethanol, in either E-10 or E-85, will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 85% as compared to reformulated gasoline. Cellulosic materials include municipal solid wastes.

Please consider comparing the environmental performance of conversion technologies against other methods of recycling, such as smelting plants that are not subject to the same repressive statutory and regulatory restrictions. In addition, consider the economic impact on California’s labor force of exporting recycled materials to China, when they could be put to better use here at home.

When recyclers export materials to China, municipalities receive credit for diverting wastes from landfills. When green waste is used as alternate daily cover, these same agencies get credit; but if you use the same green waste to produce low-cost green electricity and liquid energy for California’s citizens, municipalities do not get a diversion credit. These inequities need correcting.

The positive environmental impacts of conversion technologies, therefore, are far-reaching. California needs domestically produced liquid energy. Its utilities need additional sources if they are to meet their mandates for cost-effective green power. AB 1090 requires that the California Integrated Waste Board approve each and every new technology. This is our safeguard.

The concept that today's waste streams can become tomorrow's liquid energy and electric energy supersedes all other solutions in our quest for energy independence. These worthy goals can be achieved through your support of AB 1090, which updates a statute written in 1989, and will enable the state to properly administer technologies developed in and for the 21st Century.

I urge you to support AB 1090 as written to create a greener California and a path to zero waste.

Sincerely,
Ed Begley, Jr.

CA AB 1090 - Solid Waste and Conversion Technology

California AB 1090 is crucially important state legislation in California to amend language in solid waste regulations (drafted in 1989). The current language impedes the development of conversion technologies in this state. The new language in the bill would reprioritize the waste management hierarchy to include conversion technologies, redefine these technologies more accurately, and allow jurisdictions that use conversion technology facilities to obtain diversion credit toward meeting their 50 percent diversion goal.

Below is my letter to members of Assembly Natural Resouces Committee in support of the passage of AB 1090...

I am a native Californian, father of four, a resident of the San Fernando Valley, living in the shadow of the Sunshine Canyon Landfill. Like you, I am willing to endure the smog, the health-hazards, the economic and cultural challenges that plague this great state for the privilege of participating in their solutions.

I am immensely proud of the leadership role that California plays in the development and dissemination of new technologies that transform the world - in agriculture, aerospace, civil engineering, energy, computers, communications, media, and entertainment. “Eureka!” is a very apt motto.

I consider AB 1090 to be a linchpin whose passage will immediately draw billions of dollars in fresh investment into California to address multiple environmental problems and what our governor purports is the "defining issue of our time" - our renewable energy future.

We can change a cascading environmental liability (inefficient waste conversion) into a cascading asset with this bill. At the cost of updating a few choice words on an otherwise out-dated regulation, California can lead in unleashing a paradigm shift – cleanly converting agricultural, forestry, and urban waste into green power and renewable fuels. This shift will provide long-lasting solutions to growing problems of state-wide and world-wide significance – including greenhouse gases emissions, global warming, landfills, unemployment, and our dependence on dwindling fossil fuel resources.

What is the risk of passing AB 1090? Nothing that can’t be controlled by environmental regulations that are already in place. We don’t need the “perfect” conversion technology solution and we can’t wait until one is found. We need to act now to ensure that good people are supported (not obstructed as is the case without this bill) in their efforts to develop and perfect solutions.

What is the cost of NOT passing AB 1090?

• More landfills, more sewage spread on agricultural lands.
• More hazards from aerobic and groundwater seepage.
• Mounting costs to farmers for removal of their wastes.
• More fires in forests whose diseased timber is left in place because of undeveloped conversion options.
• More dependence on foreign fuels - and more friction between dependent cultures.
• More exposure to the corrupt decision-making of energy and electricity markets.
• More greenhouse gas emissions, more smog.

A delay means the loss of opportunity for California to lead a new paradigm shift in environmental and energy sciences. Turning waste into energy could save California billions in imports, bolster our agricultural industry, increase employment, and improve our quality-of-life in myriad ways.

Please don't "waste" this opportunity. Lead now by voting “YES” on AB 1090.