Can you donate two hours in June to stop the construction of a new coal plant?

The Stop PurGen Campaign plans for outreach in Linden every Saturday morning in June, on June 5, 12, 19 and 26. We need your help to make this an effective campaign.

We’ll gather at 10 am, get organized and do a brief training, and then canvass until 12:30. We’ll have routes for those canvassing, clipboards, an information sheet, postcards to Christie and letters to Congressman Leonard Lance whose district we’ll be canvassing in first.

We think this is an important component of our overall work in the state. Thanks to the work of a number of us, the Stop PurGen campaign has participated in 20 community events this spring and collected almost 1,000 post cards and letters to Governor Christie. But it’s important that Christie sees hundreds of post cards from Linden residents, and Linden Congresspeople need to be pushed to come out publicly against Purgen.

Please respond to Ted at indpol@igc.org about your ability to help for one, two, three or all four Saturday mornings.

PurGen: The Next Attempt at Ocean Dumping?

The PurGen plant would process coal for energy in Linden and then send a trillion pounds of pressurized, liquid carbon dioxide waste via a 100-mile pipeline through the Raritan Bay and out into the seabed off Atlantic City.

Join environmental groups for a presentation on PurGen and ocean dumping of CO2.

Speakers include:
Grace Sica, NJ Sierra Club
Laura Coll, NJ Sierra Club
Heather Saffert, Clean Ocean Action

Monday, May 24, 2010 at 7:00 p.m.

Unitarian Universalist Meeting House
1475 West Front Street
Lincroft, NJ 07738
www.uucmc.org

This event is sponsored by the Sierra Club, Monmouth Friends of Clearwater, Surfrider, Clean Ocean Action, and the NY/NJ Riverkeeper.

To download the event flyer  click here

For more information call (609) 656-7612

by Calvin Schwartz

On Saturday April 17th I attended the N.J. Environmental Federation Annual Conference at Rutgers Law School in Newark. Most attendees were affiliated with organizations. My reason for going: I love clean air, water, and being a novelist means a need to learn especially since I thought I was an environmentalist. Conference summary: seven hours of note taking; information flew off the shelves, major league baseball opening day with amazing, knowledgeable speakers (pitchers and infielders, metaphor alive and well). By the sixth page (inning) of notes, a hard dull reality, as my head swelled as in subdural hematoma; I don’t really know what’s going on. At the end of the day, I was upset with myself; all that I thought I was, NOT. Growing up in the sixties, I thought I was a civil rights activist. NOT. Dr. King spoke 8 blocks from my house in Newark in early 1963. Was I there? NOT. The March on Washington on August 28, 1963. Was I there? NOT. Did I know about a hugely vital environmental issue taking place in Linden, New Jersey, almost my backyard? NOT.

Now I’m thirteen and watching ‘Frankenstein,’ a ghastly horror gives me goose-bumps, as I hear the Baron yell, “It’s alive!”  I learn that a small Massachusetts company wants to put a coal plant in Linden (the first and largest of its kind in the world). It’ll capture its own hazardous waste CO2 gas PLUS waste from other emitters in the region (there you go again, dump in Jersey, the new Love Canal) (NJ has more federally designated toxic sites than anywhere in America. Hey, we’re Number One! Home state pride). Then they’ll pipe all that garbage (a trillion pounds near 1.2 million Jersey people) 70 miles off the good old Jersey Shore (not the TV show) and pump it a mile and a half beneath the floor of OUR Atlantic Ocean, hoping it stays there forever. The coal industry is praying (I’m still thinking of the mining disaster in West Virginia and the company ignoring all those safety violations) that the good old new government in Jersey lets them build the plant which will make air much worse in North/Central Jersey; the soot and more asthma will probably kill a lot of people. I heard the DEP head guy say (in one breath) “no” to the plant and in another breath, “but it’ll take 5 to 7 years to build.” The coal industry is praying that somebody finds a way to make coal more environmentally friendly (this Linden plant is step one). There is a ‘Frankenstein’ amount of money at stake here. So I asked a question. “Why Linden?”  “It’s close to the ocean for piping it out and close to railroad tracks for moving the coal.” And what wasn’t answered: Linden already has way above average asthma incidence (a perpetual flaming oil facility in Elizabeth is 3 miles away) If not Linden, than where? “Bayonne. Carteret” Then I asked, “What about Short Hills or Rumson?” The room laughed. I was serious. “Short Hills is not near railroad tracks.” I said, “But Rumson (rather high household income) is near tracks and ocean.” The room laughed again (at my virginity) Why not Beverly Hills? The old “not in my backyard or coast” thought process. Actually, I’m not such a virgin; in my novel Vichy Water, I mention environmental justice and incinerators (like in Newark).

I’m not an ethicist. But what I see here for Linden is a state government that may allow a coal plant to be built because it means excess money and jobs and to hell with New Jersey’s lungs. People will obviously die as a result. Railroad cars are also in the equation just like they were in 1939 Europe. Is this a Charles Dickens thing when Scrooge talked about “decreasing the surface population?” I’ll stop here. Now I’ll have to really think before calling myself an “environmentalist;” ongoing, earned, and being much more aware.

Calvin Schwartz is the author of Vichy Water – his website is:  http://vichywater.net

by Jane Califf, Green Party of Essex and Passaic Counties

Earthquakes in New Jersey?  Yes!  According to the NJ Department of Environmental Protection there have been 164 recorded earthquakes since 1783, usually minor, that have had their epicenter in our state with a magnitude of 0.4 – 5.3.  The two most recent ones that occurred on Feb. 5 and 7, 2010, were centered in Far Hills in Somerset County.  They were minor, and no damage done, but residents reported hearing explosions that were actually rocks breaking close to the surface.  1/

In comparison, the tragic earthquake in Haiti was 7.0 in magnitude.

In places like California, minor quakes are not felt because they occur deep in the earth.  However, here in New Jersey they occur at shallow levels, so people can actually hear them and often confuse them with explosions, according to Alec Gates, Chairman of the Rutgers/ Newark Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences.

Professor Gates says that there was an estimated magnitude 5.5 quake with its center in Jamaica Bay off Long Island in 1884.  This one caused widespread building damage across eastern New Jersey.  He says that an earthquake of this size occurs about every 115 – 120 years, so we are due for another one.  2/

A study in 2008 by a group of prominent seismologists found that a pattern of “subtle but active faults makes the risk of earthquakes in the New York City area substantially greater than formerly believed.”  A co-author of the report, Leonardo Seeber, says, “We need to step backward from the simple old model, where you worry about one large, obvious fault, like they do in California…The problem here comes from many subtle faults.  We now see there is earthquake activity on them.  Each one is small, but when you add them up, they are probably more dangerous than we thought.  We need to take a very close look.”  3/

Art Lerner-Lam, associate director of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University for seismology, geology and tectonophysics comments on this report: “This is a landmark study in many ways…It gives us the best possible evidence that we have an earthquake hazard that should be a factor in any planning decision.”  4/

These types of earthquakes are natural events dictated by forces within the earth over which humans have no control – except to make sure that buildings and infrastructure like tunnels and bridges are reinforced to minimize earthquake damage.

Danger of Induced Earthquakes

Beyond the threat of naturally-occurring earthquakes, there is a situation New Jersey and New York City may be facing in the near future called “induced earthquakes.” This could come about if a high technology coal plant called PurGen is built in Linden using a method of processing waste carbon dioxide called “carbon capture and storage” (CCS) to create electricity.  Instead of the carbon dioxide (C02) waste going into the atmosphere from the plant’s stacks, 90% of it would be captured, highly pressurized into a liquid, and forced into pipes that take it out to sea.  Then it would be buried a mile and a half beneath the ocean floor in a sandstone formation, off the Jersey coast about 70 miles from Atlantic City.

The drilling and pressurized injection of C02 used by PurGen could cause earthquakes which would not be a natural event, but human-caused.

Jack Century, a Canadian geologist with 50 years experience, believes that injecting any gas or liquid into the ground without very carefully studying the geology could become a hazard.  “’If you’re not careful, you can inject it higher than the natural pressures in the reservoir you’re injecting into,’ he said, noting that if the reservoir is over a fault line or very close to one, it could cause an earthquake.  ‘It isn’t just earthquakes that are a problem, but it’s when you start injecting fluids into the earth and you don’t know what you’re doing, you can start small seismic events…and they can cause fractures, and the fractures themselves can interfere with the reservoir and violate the integrity of the reservoir and cause leakage…and you don’t know where they’re going to go.’”  5/

A report entitled “State of Texas Hazards Analysis” states that “…some human activities are known to cause or trigger earthquakes.  These include the injection of fluids into the earth for waste disposal or petroleum production, and the filling of deep lakes or reservoirs.”  6/

In 1987, a magnitude 3.8 earthquake and multiple aftershocks of 3.0 or less hit Ashtabula Township, Ohio, located on Lake Erie.  This happened after millions of gallons of hazardous fluids were forced under high pressure into a 1.8 kilometer-deep well.  This waste was injected from 1986 – 1993.  Then in 2001, a stronger 4.5 quake damaged 50 homes and businesses: ceiling tiles fell, plaster cracked, and gas lines broke causing people to evacuate.

Prior to injecting waste into this well, this town had no recorded earthquakes.  Geologists and seismologists believe that this human activity caused the quakes: that the highly pressurized waste lubricated an ancient unknown earthquake fault line which gave it the necessary lubrication to slip, thereby shaking the earth.  7/

A CCS Plant Like PurGen Has Never Been Built Before

What we need to keep in mind is that CCS is a new technology that has never been implemented on this scale.  The PurGen plant would be huge – 750 megawatts (MW).  We must ask ourselves this:  if an earthquake hit, couldn’t pipes rupture and/or the plant’s  buildings crack or explode, releasing C02 – which is deadly in large amounts to fish, other wildlife and to humans?  Could the 138 mile long pipeline out to sea be made earthquake-proof?  Couldn’t C02 that would be “buried” off the coast of New Jersey be released from the ocean floor if the tremor was strong enough?  Millions of people living in North Jersey, along the Jersey coast and in New York City could be very badly affected by such an event.

Some geologists are investigating what they say are vast amounts of basalt rock under the ocean floor near Sandy Hook that they say is porous enough to absorb a billion tons of C02.  They say the liquid C02 that would be pumped into it would change into limestone or chalk, thus becoming solid so it would never escape.  (This is not the targeted rock formation in PurGen’s proposal.)

However, it has been estimated to take hundreds of years for this chemical change to take place.  8/  Suppose there is an earthquake in the meantime that leads to a dangerous release of C02 ?

To avoid such a catastrophe, thirty (and counting) New Jersey organizations – fishing associations, environmental, and community groups – have come together to oppose the building of this plant.

Resources for this article:

1/  “Minor earthquakes hit Somerset” by Stephen Stirling (Star Ledger, 2/11/10)
2/  Personal correspondence with   Prof. Alec Gates, Chair of the Rutgers/Newark Dept. of Earth and Environmental Sciences.
3/  “Earthquakes may endanger New York more than thought, says study,” Press Release, 8/21/08, The Earth Institute at Columbia University, Palisades, N.Y.
4/  Ibid.
5/  “Carbon Capture and Storage ‘being oversold as a panacea’” by Bea Vongdouangchanh, The Hill Times, Canada’s Politics and Government Newsweekly, 4/13/09.
6/  “State of Texas Hazards Analysis,” Chapter 12, by the Governor’s Division of Emergency Management, Department of Public Safety, Austin, Texas, 1998.
7/  “Triggering quakes with waste” by Christina Reed (Geotimes, March 2002, www.geotimes.org)
8/  “Turning C02 into Stone,” video, National Public Radio, “Science Friday”, July 18, 2008.

Other resources:

National Geographic News, Jan. 4, 2010;  Rebecca Kerins-Tattoli, Energy Expert;
Peter Montague, Environmental Research Foundation.

By Peter Montague, Environmental Research Foundation

The PurGen application to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) for an air permit offer us some valuable insights into the proposed coal plant. (A PDF copy of the air permit can be found here: page numbers within this memo refer to pages in that PDF document.)

The 750 megawatt power plant will send “up to 450 MW [megawatts] of electrical power to the PJM Interconnect* market.” (pg. 9) (PJM Interconnection is an electricity wholesaler that serves New Jersey but not New York.) This means that 300 megawatts (or 40%) of PurGen’s 750 megawatts will be doing something besides generating electricity.

The 300 megawatts will be doing two things: powering the carbon sequestration apparatus, and making nitrogen fertilizer (urea) for sale.

“Purgen will use 2.55 million tons of coal per year. Of this, 40% will be mined, shipped and processed each year for purposes other than making electricity … powering the carbon sequestration apparatus and making nitrogen fertilizer for sale.”

Purgen will use 7000 tons of coal per day (pg. 9). (Pg. 10 says Purgen will use 40,000 tons of coal every 5 days, which is 8000 tons per day. In this memo, I’ll use the lower figure, 7000 tons per day.)

At 7000 tons per day, Purgen will use 2.55 million tons of coal per year. Of this, 40%, or one million tons of coal (in round numbers), will be mined, shipped and processed each year for purposes other than making electricity.

On pg. 17 we learn that Purgen will produce 40,000 tons of urea every 11 days, or 1.3 million tons per year. Urea is the most nitrogen-rich fertilizer in common use (it’s 46.7% nitrogen), and it currently sells for about $500 per ton, thus bringing Purgen $650 million per year. (See Table 7 at http://goo.gl/3blT)

According to U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. used 5.7 million tons of urea in 2007 (see Table 4 at http://goo.gl/3blT). So PurGen’s annual urea production will be large — 23% of annual U.S. urea use.

Nitrogen is an unusual element. It makes up 78% of the atmosphere, yet in the air it is inert, meaning that is does not combine chemically with other substances. Two natural agents “fix” atmospheric nitrogen into chemically reactive forms — lightning and bacteria in soils. See http://goo.gl/zRxB

Plants and animals require chemically-reactive nitrogen for their metabolism, eventually returning it to the atmosphere. As early as 1970 scientists expressed concern that humans were interfering with the global nitrogen cycle on a massive scale[1] — humans were fixing the same amount as natural processes — thus doubling the amount of reactive nitrogen cycling through the biosphere.

“Nitrogen is creating “dead zones” in the world’s oceans, and killing corals, among other negative effects.”

Since 1970, human production of reactive nitrogen has continued to grow, and scientific concern about the consequences has grown apace. In September 2009, a group of European scientists described nine ecological “boundaries” that they believe humans must not transgress. Of the nine, three have been transgessed already — and one of these three is human use of nitrogen fertilizers. See http://goo.gl/NGeN and http://goo.gl/8iwK and http://goo.gl/l9NF.

This group of scientists calculated that human use of reactive nitrogen must be cut to one-quarter of where it is today, in order to achieve a sustainable level of use. http://goo.gl/8iwK

Thus the PurGen coal plant will be manufacturing 1.3 million tons of a fertilizer that ecologists tell us is already ruining the biosphere (the parts of the planet that inhabited by living things). Nitrogen is creating “dead zones” in the world’s oceans, and killing corals, among other negative effects.

One might argue that making more electricity is a good thing, but it is hard to argue that making more reactive nitrogen fertilizer is a good thing. The biosphere is already being degraded by reactive nitrogen fertilizer and cannot tolerate more.

Urea has the chemical formula CH4N2O. After it is spread onto agricultural land, urea hydrolyses into ammonia and carbon dioxide — thus reducing PurGen’s overall carbon capture and sequestration efficiency. We need quantify this aspect of Purgen’s urea production to learn the extent to which it will prevent Purgen from achieving its goal of capturing 90% of its CO2 emissions.

Economically, Purgen is really a fertilizer factory that also produces some electricity, rather than an electric power plant that also produces some fertilizer.

==============

[1] Carroll L. Wilson and others. Man’s Impact on the Global Environment; Assessment and Recommendations for Action. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1970. See, for example, Table 2.3 on pg. 116.

This article was first published on March 15, 2010.

Raritan Valley Group Sierra Club Meeting on 750-megawatt PurGen coal plant in Linden, NJ

Thursday, March 18 7:30 PM
Boundbrook Memorial Library

Dr. Peter Montague, Executive Director of the Environmental Research Foundation, will give a talk on the proposed electrical generation plant in Linden using coal gasification and Carbon capture and sequestration. CO2 would be sent via a 100-mile underground pipeline under the Raritan Bay to a point 70 miles off the coast and about 2,200 yards beneath the Atlantic Ocean.

Pizza and soda provided for discussion after the meeting.

Gov. Christie’s appointee for the DEP Commissioner, Bob Martin, announced on Friday his opposition to the proposed PurGen plant. In a conversation with the Asbury Park Press, Martin stated his concerns and confirmed the Governor’s opposition as well:

“We oppose that. I oppose it. The governor opposes it for a lot of reasons, and including environmental justice-type reasons…. We have serious concerns about that plant and we don’t know that it’s fair that that community takes on another plant. It doesn’t seem right to me. It doesn’t seem right to the governor, either.” — Bob Martin, 3/3/10

Thank you Commissioner Martin!

For the full link to the article visit here: http://blogs.app.com/enviroguy/