[Gasification] Article - US EPA Looks to Revamp Pyrolysis and Gasification Regulations

[Pantuck, Kenneth]

Clearing the Air: US EPA Looks to Revamp Pyrolysis and Gasification
Regulations

 

By  <https://www.natlawreview.com/author/sam-ballingrud> Sam Ballingrud of
<https://www.natlawreview.com/organization/squire-patton-boggs-us-llp>
Squire Patton Boggs (US) LLP

National Law Review

October 19, 2021

 

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.  In this case, one man’s solid
waste, commercial and industrial waste, biomass, plastics, tires, and
organic contaminants are another man’s energy, fuel, and commodity chemicals
thanks to waste conversion technologies generally known as pyrolysis and
gasification.  For years, these waste conversion technologies have been
regulated under a patchwork of ill-fitting Clean Air Act (CAA) regulations
and remain at relatively low levels of commercial adoption.  Now that may be
changing.

On September 8, the US EPA announced
<https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2021/09/08/2021-19390/potential-f
uture-regulation-addressing-pyrolysis-and-gasification-units> an advanced
notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPRM) to “assist in the potential
development of regulations for pyrolysis and gasification units,” which,
many hope, represents the first step in standardizing and clarifying
regulations for these technologies.  In addition, last August EPA
<https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/08/31/2020-17730/standards-o
f-performance-for-new-stationary-sources-and-emission-guidelines-for-existin
g-sources> issued a proposed rule for Other Solid Waste Incineration (OSWI)
plants which would simplify pyrolysis regulations by removing the reference
to pyrolysis from the definition of “municipal waste combustion unit.”  In
the ANPRM, EPA states that it would issue the final OSWI Rule by October 31.

The processes of pyrolysis and gasification are not defined in current law.
These processes have changed and improved over the years and now come in a
variety of different configurations such as high- and low-temperature
gasification, plasma gasification, thermal or catalytic pyrolysis, and
hydrocracking.  Broadly speaking, pyrolysis is a non-combustive process
which involves decomposing feedstock under heat in low-to-no oxygen
environments and produces tars, oils, particulate matter, and reduced sulfur
and nitrogen compounds.  In gasification, where one of the main differences
is the presence of oxygen, feedstock is reacted with steam or oxygen under
high-heat (even low-temperature gasification occurs at several hundred
degrees Celsius) and produces, among other products, syngas which has a wide
variety of applications including use as a fuel.

Pyrolysis and gasification technologies remained underutilized in the United
States where few plants exist and fewer still are in regular commercial
operation.  But industry interest in chemical and plastics recycling is
rapidly growing and EPA’s recent steps to standardize regulations may assist
in the development and adoption of chemical recycling and waste conversion
technologies.  Reforming the regulatory landscape will help provide clarity
in this emerging area.

One difficulty EPA has had in regulating pyrolysis and gasification is that
the exact processes are poor fits for many existing regulatory categories.
Pyrolysis has long been regulated (to the extent necessary given its low
adoption) under CAA Section 129, 42 U.S.C. § 7429, which requires EPA to
establish performance standards (New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) and
Emissions Guidelines (EG)) based on Maximum Achievable Control Technologies
(MACT) for solid waste incineration units “which combust[] any solid waste
material from commercial or industrial establishments or the general
public.”  EPA promulgates these regulations for new and existing units as
well as a general “other categories of solid waste incineration units” or
OSWI.

Currently, OSWI regulations provide that a “municipal waste combustion unit”
(MWC) includes “pyrolysis/combustion units.”  40 C.F.R. § 60.3078.  But the
regulations do not define “pyrolysis/combustion” and that term appears only
in the definition for municipal waste combustion units and the definition of
OSWI only includes “very small municipal waste combustion unit[s]”; even so,
EPA has previously taken the position that pyrolysis is also regulated as an
OSWI under the definition of “institutional waste incineration unit”
notwithstanding the fact that a reference to pyrolysis exists only in the
definition of MWC.  Needless to say, industry participants have found this a
vexing and confusing regulatory regime.

And so the August 2020 Proposed Rule seeks to remove the reference to
pyrolysis from the OSWI regulations.  EPA is proposing to remove pyrolysis
from OSWI definitions because “such [pyrolysis] units are used to combust
uncontained gases and do not involve the combustion of solid waste as
defined in the OSWI rule.”  Indeed, pyrolysis does not involve combustion at
all.  Rather, pyrolysis decomposes or “cracks” feedstock at high heat, with
a catalyst (catalytic cracking) or without (thermal cracking).  Contrary to
a combustive process, pyrolysis is endothermic—the cracking reaction takes
in heat rather than emitting it.

The August 2020 Proposed Rule is the culmination of
<https://www.regulations.gov/docket/EPA-HQ-OAR-2003-0156/document> over
fifteen years of litigation and rulemaking stemming from the EPA’s original
promulgation of OSWI regulations in 2004.  Environmental groups
<https://www.regulations.gov/comment/EPA-HQ-OAR-2003-0156-0185> have already
indicated they believe the Proposed Rule is not acceptable and further
litigation over the rule seems likely.  It remains to be seen whether the
Rule and the pyrolysis/OSWI amendment take effect as planned.

Meanwhile, the ANPRM takes a broader view but is non-committal about what,
if any, concrete steps EPA plans.  For the moment, the ANPRM is a purely
informational exercise that does not require EPA to take any steps if it
does not see fit to do so.  It seems more likely than not that EPA intends
to use the ANPRM to comprehensively overhaul its pyrolysis regulations
following the OSWI Rule’s expected enactment in October, and regulating
gasification alongside makes sense given its parallel role in chemicals and
waste recycling.

EPA’s action is not just a necessary reform to a long-ambiguous set of
regulations—providing greater guidance here will allow regulated industries
to more fully embrace emerging mechanisms for addressing two pressing
environmental issues: effective destruction of resilient contaminants and
recycling carbon-intense plastics and chemicals.

“PFAS,” per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a broad category of
chemicals with a wide variety of industrial and commercial uses.  While
domestic industry partners have voluntarily agreed to wind down usage of
certain types of PFAS, a vexing issue remains in how to ensure destruction
of PFAS-contaminated substances which are remarkably resilient and
long-lasting.  EPA’s PFAS Innovative Treatment Team (PITT)
<https://www.epa.gov/chemical-research/research-brief-potential-pfas-destruc
tion-technology-pyrolysis-and-gasification> published a Research Brief this
January discussing the use of pyrolysis and gasification processes in
destroying PFAS-contaminated waste.  PITT identified pyrolysis and
gasification as “promising technologies” in the effective destruction of
wastewater solids containing PFAS.  Effective destruction of PFAS-containing
wastewater would be a significant benefit.

More broadly, modern pyrolysis and gasification technologies hold a great
deal of promise in promoting effective plastics and chemical recycling and
reducing the need to use new inputs.  As EPA recognized in the ANPRM,
pyrolysis and gasification do not degrade the quality of the output relative
to the feedstock and so have the potential to “generate a ‘circular economy’
around plastics use, where a post-consumer plastic product can be recycled
to produce a plastic of equal or similar quality again instead of being
disposed of or ‘downcycled’ to lesser quality products.” Effective and
wide-spread adoption of pyrolysis and gasification may reduce the demand for
virgin inputs in chemicals manufacturing and so reduce related emissions and
environmental impacts.  As public pressure mounts to reduce or eliminate
single-use plastics and increase recycling, clearer regulation of pyrolysis
and gasification may assist industry adoption of these technologies.

Comments on the ANPRM are currently due November 8, 2021.

© Copyright 2021 Squire Patton Boggs (US) LLP

 

 
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Note: Since the writing of this article, the EPA has extended the November
8, 2021 due date on comments to December 23, 2021.

 

 

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