incinerators that burn hazardous waste. Fear of new hazardous waste regulations would lead a slow drive toward pollution prevention, he added. However, EI surveys show that no commercial hazardous waste
incineration firms will leave the business, he said. Instead, they will make the pollution control modifications called for and hope new business will come their way when owners of on-site incinerators and cement kilns are eventu-
ally faced with large expenditures for new control equipment. He added that commercial burners may also receive new business when and if the boiler and industrial furnace rule comes out. —JEFF JOHNSON
Continuous emissions monitors for toxics need more work Continuous emissions monitors (CEMs) for air toxics may be available, but they are not dependable or commercially viable, according to federal engineers and scientists who spoke Dec. 10-11 at a technical workshop at EPA's offices in Research Triangle Park, N.C. The "emissions and process monitoring" workshop was sponsored by the Department of Energy (DOE), EPA, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and Air and Waste Management Association to disdevelopment of CEMs for toxic air pollutants The most prominent driver of CEM development for this application is DOE's disposal needs and EPA's hazardous waste incineration regulation now stalled in part because of the lack of field-ready CEMs (see story above) Much discussed at the workshop was a DOE program to develop CEMs for use in destroying its stockpile of mixed hazardous and low-level nuclear wastes stored at DOE facilities across the country. DOE, along with the Department of Defense and EPA, has created a $41 million annual federal technology development budget for treating mixed hazardous and nuclear waste, according to Stephen Priebe, an engineer at the DOE Idaho National Engineering Laboratory. Much of this funding llHS 20116 into development of CEM technologies that can be used to measure particulates mercurv metals volatile organic compounds various chlorinated comDOunds, and dioxin emissions from incinerators Overall, Priebe stressed that although CEM technologies are available for these air pollutants, most need further development before they can meet current regulatory requirements. Closest to commercialization, he said, are CEMs for particulates and mercury, but even these need more
EPA's rotary kiln incinerator simulator at its Research Triangle Park laboratory is being used to test continuous emissions monitors for metals. Shown above is the kiln's afterburner in which metals are added to the exiting gas stream to challenge the monitoring equipment. (Photo courtesy of EPA)
testing. Farthest off is a dioxin CEM, although a German technology is undergoing tests at the agency's North Carolina facility. Priebe also noted that high on EPA's and DOE's priority list was development of multimetal CEMs. He said DOE and EPA hope their seed funds will bring a commercially viable multimetals CEM to market in 12-18 months. Priebe noted that DOE recendy put together a 100-page background strategy document to guide the federal, multiagency CEM research agenda. Meanwhile, he said, federal officials are "encouraged by what is out there." Increasingly, the need for process controls—rather than regulatory requirements—was becoming the main CEM driver, Priebe added; in other words, the need
for treatment system operators to understand and control incineration is pushing CEMs. "CEMs can provide valuable data that may help in negotiations with regulators to set permitting and testing requirements." In DOE's case, CEMs offer incinerator operators the opportunity to avoid expensive, dangerous, and difficult tests to characterize mixed wastes before burning them. Real-time emissions monitoring holds the potential to give operators the ability to adjust burn parameters and feed requirements immediately and to control emissions from a hodgepodge of wastes. Characterization of the contents of drums of long-buried mixed wastes he said is one of the biggest problems facing DOE's cleanup program .—JEFF JOHNSON
VOL. 31, NO. 2, 1997/ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY / NEWS • 7 9 A
