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EPA Releases Final Health Assessment for Tetrachloroethylene (Perc)

Release Date: 02/10/2012

WASHINGTON – Today the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) posted the final health assessment for tetrachloroethylene – also known as perchloroethylene, or perc – to EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) database. Perc is a chemical solvent widely used in the dry cleaning industry. It is also used in the cleaning of metal machinery and to manufacture some consumer products and other chemicals. Confirming longstanding scientific understanding and research, the final assessment characterizes perc as a “likely human carcinogen.” The assessment provides estimates for both cancer and non-cancer effects associated with exposure to perc over a lifetime.

EPA does not believe that wearing clothes dry cleaned with perc will result in exposures which pose a risk of concern. EPA has already taken several significant actions to reduce exposure to perc. EPA has clean air standards for dry cleaners that use perc, including requirements that will phase-out the use of perc by dry cleaners in residential buildings by December 21, 2020. EPA also set limits for the amount of perc allowed in drinking water and levels for cleaning up perc at Superfund sites throughout the country, which will be updated in light of the IRIS assessment.

“The perc health assessment released today will provide valuable information to help protect people and communities from exposure to perc in soil, water and air,” said Paul Anastas, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Research and Development. “This assessment emphasizes the value of the IRIS database in providing strong science to support government officials as they make decisions to protect the health of the American people.”

The toxicity values reported in the perc IRIS assessment will be considered in:

• Establishing cleanup levels at the hundreds of Superfund sites where perc is a contaminant
• Revising EPA’s Maximum Contaminant Level for perc as part of the carcinogenic volatile organic compounds group in drinking water, as described in the agency’s drinking water strategy
• Evaluating whether to propose additional limits on the emissions of perc into the atmosphere, since perc is considered a hazardous air pollutant under the Clean Air Act

The assessment replaces the 1988 IRIS assessment for perc and for the first time includes a hazard characterization for cancer effects. This assessment has undergone several levels of rigorous, independent peer review including: agency review, interagency review, public comment, and external peer review by the National Research Council. All major review comments have been addressed.

EPA continues to strengthen IRIS as part of an ongoing effort to ensure the best possible science is used to protect human health and the environment. In May 2009, EPA streamlined the IRIS process to increase transparency, ensure the timely publication of assessments, and reinforce independent review. In July 2011, EPA announced further changes to strengthen the IRIS program in response to recommendations from the National Academy of Sciences. EPA’s peer review process is designed to elicit the strongest possible critique to ensure that each final IRIS assessment reflects sound, rigorous science.

More information on the perc IRIS assessment: http://www.epa.gov/iris/subst/0106.htm

More information on perc: http://epa.gov/oppt/existingchemicals/pubs/perchloroethylene_fact_sheet.html

New Battery Could Lead to Cheaper, More Efficient Solar Energy

ScienceDaily (Feb. 9, 2012) — A joint research project between the University of Southampton and lithium battery technology company REAPsystems has found that a new type of battery has the potential to improve the efficiency and reduce the cost of solar power.

The research project, sponsored by REAPsystems, was led by MSc Sustainable Energy Technologies student, Yue Wu and his supervisors Dr Carlos Ponce de Leon, Professor Tom Markvart and Dr John Low (currently working at the University’s Research Institute for Industry, RIfI). The study looked specifically into the use of lithium batteries as an energy storage device in photovoltaic systems.

Student Yue Wu says, “Lead acid batteries are traditionally the energy storage device used for most photovoltaic systems. However, as an energy storage device, lithium batteries, especially the LiFePO4batteries we used, have more favourable characteristics.”

Data was collected by connecting a lithium iron phosphate battery to a photovoltaic system attached to one of the University’s buildings, using a specifically designed battery management system supplied by REAPsystems.

Yue adds, “the research showed that the lithium battery has an energy efficiency of 95 per cent whereas the lead-acid batteries commonly used today only have around 80 per cent. The weight of the lithium batteries is lower and they have a longer life span than the lead-acid batteries reaching up to 1,600 charge/discharge cycles, meaning they would need to be replaced less frequently.”

Although the battery will require further testing before being put into commercial photovoltaic systems the research has shown that the LiFePO4 battery has the potential to improve the efficiency of solar power systems and help to reduce the costs of both their installation and upkeep. Dr Carlos Ponce de Leon and Dr. John Low now plan to take this project further with a new cohort of Masters students.

Dr Dennis Doerffel, founder of REAPsystems and former researcher at the University of Southampton, says: “For all kinds of energy source (renewable or non-renewable), the energy storage device — such as a battery — plays an important role in determining the energy utilisation. Compared with traditional lead acid batteries, LiFePO4 batteries are more efficient, have a longer lifetime, are lighter and cost less per unit. We can see the potential of this battery being used widely in photovoltaic application, and other renewable energy systems.”

New Tool Determines Value of Solar Photovoltaic Power Systems

ScienceDaily (Feb. 1, 2012)

Consistent appraisals of homes and businesses outfitted with photovoltaic (PV) installations are a real challenge for the nation’s real estate industry, but a new tool developed by Sandia National Laboratories and Solar Power Electric™ and licensed by Sandia addresses that issue. Sandia scientists, in partnership with Jamie Johnson of Solar Power Electric™, have developed PV ValueTM, an electronic form to standardize appraisals. Funded by the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, the tool will provide appraisers, real estate agents and mortgage underwriters with more accurate values for PV systems.

“Previous methods for appraising PV installations on new or existing construction have been challenging because they were not using standard appraisal practices,” said Geoff Klise, the Sandia researcher who co-developed the tool. “Typically, appraisers develop the value of a property improvement based on comparable properties with similar improvements as well as prevailing market conditions. If there aren’t PV systems nearby, there is no way to make an improvement comparison. When a PV system is undervalued or not valued at all, it essentially ignores the value of the electricity being produced and the potential savings over the lifetime of the system. By developing a standard methodology for appraisers when comparables are not available, homeowners will have more incentive to install PV systems, even if they consider moving a few years after system installation.”

The tool uses an Excel spreadsheet, tied to real-time lending information and market fluctuations, to determine the worth of a PV system. An appraiser enters such variables as the ZIP code where the system is located, the system size in watts, the derate factor — which takes into account shading and other factors that affect a system’s output — tracking, tilt and azimuth, along with a few other factors, and the spreadsheet returns the value of the system as a function of a pre-determined risk spread. The solar resource calculation in the spreadsheet is based on the PVWattsTM simulator developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, which allows the spreadsheet to value a PV system anywhere in the U.S.

“With PV Value™, appraisers can quickly calculate the present value of energy that a PV system can be estimated to produce during its remaining useful lifetime, similar to the appraisal industry’s income approach,” said Johnson. “Additionally, a property owner thinking about installing PV can now estimate the remaining present value of energy for their future PV system and what it could be worth to a purchaser of their property at any point in time in the event a sale of the property takes place before the estimated payback date is reached.”

The tool is being embraced by the Appraisal Institute, which is the nation’s largest professional association of real estate appraisers. “From my perspective as an appraiser, I see that this is a great tool to assist the appraiser in valuations, and it connects to the Appraisal Institute’s recent Residential Green and Energy Efficient Addendum. It’s an easy, user-friendly spreadsheet that will not bog the appraiser down with a lot of extra time in calculations, and if they fill out the addenda properly, they’ll be able to make the inputs and come up with some numbers fairly quickly,” said Sandy Adomatis, SRA, a real estate appraiser and member of the Appraisal Institute.

Although the tool is licensed for solar PV installations, it could be used for other large green features in a home that generate income, such as wind turbines. The spreadsheet, user manual and webinar explaining the tool are available for download at http://pv.sandia.gov/pvvalue.

Solar Power Electric™ located in Port Charlotte, Fla., is an electrical contracting and solar integration company specializing in the installation of commercial and residential photovoltaic systems.

Revitalizing U.S. manufacturing

Ryan Matley, Rocky Mountain Institute

Stories about the death of U.S. manufacturing are a recurring theme since the “Japanese invasion” of electronics and autos in the early 1980s, and the sector hemorrhaged 5.5 million jobs over the past decade. But U.S. manufacturing is far from dead, in fact providing a rare bright spot in today’s economy.

Manufacturing employment has grown each of the last two years, driven by a rebounding auto sector, and now employs 11.7 million people. A number of trends are coinciding to make U.S. manufacturing increasingly competitive globally. Wages and benefits are growing rapidly in China — as Obama noted in his speech — at the same time that U.S. manufacturing wages are falling. The risks of operating a supply chain that stretches halfway around the world are growing: rising transportation costs, the threat of import duties, less product flexibility, slower time to market, intellectual property theft, and product safety/reputation risks are growing concerns when moving manufacturing offshore. All of these factors are translating into making U.S. manufacturing more appealing.

Efficiency and whole-system design can help industry accelerate these growing advantages. Analysis from Reinventing Fire, RMI’s blueprint to running a 158 percent bigger 2050 U.S. economy powered by efficiency and renewables reveals that the industrial sector can achieve 84 percent greater production using 9 to 13 percent less energy, and save $0.5 trillion net.

For example, with RMI’s help, Texas Instruments (TI) built a new, million-square-foot semiconductor fabrication plant in Richardson, Texas. This facility, opened in 2009, was the first LEED Gold rated semiconductor facility, and its innovative design saved $4 million in annual energy operating cost and 35 percent of its water use compared with TI’s previous chip fab built just four miles away. Building this facility added up to less than 1 percent of the construction budget.

Read the complete article at Sustainable Industries

Business Could Save $173m with Compressed Air Improvements

From Environmental Leader, January 27, 2012

Air compressors present a variety of opportunities for saving energy, from leak reduction and air intake improvements, to maintenance, monitoring, specification and design, according to guidance from the Carbon Trust.

Of the total energy supplied to a compressor, as little as 8 to 10 percent is converted to usable energy at point of use, making it a very inefficient and expensive way of transferring energy. The Carbon Trust says businesses in the U.K. could save up to £110 million a year ($173 million) by taking simple actions, at little or no cost, to improve compressed air systems and processes.

The trust says that compressed air can be up to 30 percent of a facility’s energy use, with frequent users of compressed air including companies in aircraft and auto manufacturing, cement, ceramics, chemicals, electronics, engineering, food and drink, foundries, glass, insulation materials, minerals, paper and board, pharmaceuticals, power generation, rubber and plastics, steel, textiles, tobacco and water treatment.

Some of the opportunities for improvement are:

Read the complete article at Environmental Leader

Drug Companies Fight Take-Back Program for Unused Medicine

Investigate West
Leftover medications are fueling an epidemic of prescription-drug abuse that is killing more Washingtonians than traffic accidents, say drug-addiction experts. Yet pharmaceutical companies have consistently torpedoed efforts here to fund a statewide disposal program for unused drugs. Meanwhile, environmental authorities say prescription drugs are turning up in waterways and even drinking water — and it’s happening often enough that the old medications now are considered hazardous waste.

More

Report: Retrofits ‘More Green’ than New-Builds

From Environmental Leader

Renovating old buildings is better for the environment than building new structures, according to a report by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

According to The Greenest building: Quantifying the Environmental Value of Building Reuse, renovating an existing historic office building in Chicago reduces the building’s impact on climate change by up to 12 percent when compared to constructing a new building. Results vary by climatic zone, so refitting an office building in Portland, Ore., reduces that impact by up to 16 percent, the report said.

This impact on climate change versus a new “green” building is due to the immense amount of carbon expended – on things such as new materials and transportation of said materials – at the start of a new building project. The report says that it can take between 10 to 80 years for a new energy-efficient building to overcome, through efficient operations, the climate change impacts created by its construction.

Scale matters, so much so, that retrofitting, rather than demolishing and replacing, just 1 percent of the city of Portland’s office buildings and single family homes over the next ten years would help to meet 15 percent of their county’s total CO2 reduction targets over the next decade, the report says.

In December, the Minnesota Department of Commerce announced retrofit projects across 36 facilities that it says will generate more than $3 million in permanent, ongoing energy savings every year for the foreseeable future.

The improvements targeted commercial, industrial, and nonprofit facilities across the state. Such facilities account for half of the state’s energy use, and retrofitting offered the Commerce Department what it called the “biggest bang for our buck.”

Does it make economic sense for businesses to recycle?

Source: Waste Disposal Equipment

New Free Guide shows how to answer that.

Q: At a time when companies are desperately looking for ways to reduce costs and increase revenues, what sense does it make to consider spending money on waste disposal and recycling equipment?

A: It could very well mean reduced costs and additional revenues. All they need to do is look at the facts.

With this in mind, a new free “Guide to Calculate Savings from Waste Disposal & Recycling Equipment” is now available for companies & organizations to determine the specific dollar impact on their operations. Unlike anything else available, it provides a practical tool for companies to determine for themselves whether it would be an economically wise decision“ based on facts, rather than on opinions or prejudgments.

Currently there is considerable debate within the business community on whether it is worthwhile to invest in such equipment (e,g. balers, compactors & crushers). Many feel that compacting wastes & recycling is just an additional cost burden and therefore is not worth the time or expense to pursue.

This Guide provides helpful information, including tables showing overall savings in relation to the cost of equipment. It also includes formulas they can use to calculate their likely “Break-Even” level (where the savings offset the cost of the equipment; “Payback” (how long it will take for savings to equal the cost of equipment; and” Return on Investment” (the percentage return they get on their cost of equipment). This Guide is in a “workbook” format so companies can just plug in their own figures to make the calculations for their particular situation.

Many companies are surprised to find that they can actually come out ahead money-wise, frequently with full payback from their equipment investment within 2 years or less. On the other hand, some companies’ calculations may show that the equipment would cost more than what they would save. Today’s equipment is very efficient and can reduce the volume of wastes by up to 90% by compacting and can convert wastes into recyclable form. Savings on disposal costs by 50% or more is typical. And companies can get additional revenues by recycling. So the only way for a company to know their likely result is to do their own calculation.

This 11 page Guide can be useful for all types of companies and organizations -regardless of industry categories or size of operations – since they all have to deal with disposing of their wastes. It can be especially useful for those involved in waste management.

In addition, the Guide covers other less-quantifiable benefits of waste reduction & recycling, including such factors as: saving space, saving time, improving operational efficiencies, improved safety, strengthening the organization’s image – while also benefitting the environment. Even though these benefits are difficult to measure in dollar terms, they further add to the value of investing in such equipment. “If the numbers turn out right, which is the likely outcome, it can be a true “win-win” outcome“ for the companies as well as for the environment” says Paul Juhnke, President of Waste Disposal Equipment Co.

To get a free copy of the “Guide to Calculate Savings from Waste Disposal & Recycling Equipment”, visit the website: waste-disposal-equipment.com or call 800-708-2933 and it will be emailed within a day.

Waste Disposal Equipment Company is a Milwaukee, WI based supplier of a broad line of balers, compactors & crushers to companies and organizations nationwide.