CURRENTS I WASHINGTON Calculations which predict a global warming if fossil-fuel use continues were given fresh support by a N a tional Academy of Sciences study released in late November. The report concluded that the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide will double within the next 50 years, leading to an increase of about 3 “C in the average world temperature. The so-called “greenhouse effect” of atmospheric C 0 2 is the mechanism: COz is transparent to solar radiation, but absorbs energy radiated by the Earth which would normally be lost to space. Heavy exploitation of coal is expected to result in the continued growth in total fossil-fuel consumption at a rate of 4% per year; an earlier study predicted that synfuel production would result in an even higher rate, leading to a doubling of atmospheric COz in 30 jears. Continued release of chtorofluoromethanes (CFM’s) at the 1977 level will deplete the ozone layer by 16.5%, according to another N A S report. This new study found that the “effects of SFT’s are smaller than previously predicted but that those of halocarbon releases are greater.” The higher value for CFM’s is a result of new data on
I
chemical reaction rates. The report found that, even allowing for possible tropospheric sinks for CFM’s, possible changes in stratospheric chemistry, and the chance that some chemical reactions have been overlooked, there is a “3 out of 4 chance that continued release of CFM’s a t the 1977 level will result in an ozone depletion that lies in the range of 9-24%.”
A new EPA regulation limits chloroform and other trihalomethanes in drinking water to 100 parts per billion. These compounds, formed as a result of chlorination of water, are suspected carcinogens. According to the EPA, many of the 5 15 or so water systems that will have to modify their procedures in order to comply may have to change only the point where chlorine is added. The estimated cost of the regulation is $85 million in initial investment, plus $19 million in annual operating costs. Congress has allocated $19 billion for a synthetic fuels development fund. In the coming year, $2.2 billion from this “Energy Security Reserve” will be used to cover price supports, loan guarantee defaults, and plant-site studies. T h e rest of the money will be available in future years. A $1 -billion “Solar and
Calculated ozone depletion due to CFM’s 0
-4 C 0 N 0
-8
a,
-12
2
-16
-c
cn 0
s
-20 - 24
1960
I
Source: NAS
1980
2000
Year ..
2020
2040
Stratospheric ozone depletion by halocarbons chemistry and transport
2060
Conservation Reserve” was also established. President Carter had originally asked for $88 billion for synfuels development.
The National Bureau of Standards has established an environmental specimen bank in cooperation with the EPA. T h e bank will help in the detection of new health hazards and in the evaluation of pollutioncontrol measures. “When new chemicals or pollutants are encountered, then we will be able to go back in time, so to speak, to measure baseline concentrations as they exist in the stored samples,” said Dr. George M. Goldstein, the coordinator of the program. Samples will be frozen in liquid nitrogen, and a r e expected to last at least 5 years without undergoing changes in chemical composition. Refiners may recover the extra cost of gasohol production through price increases in all the gasoline they produce, under a new Department of Energy rule. D O E has also made gasohol producers eligible for entitlements of about 5 $ per gallon. Entitlements are paid by refiners using low-priced, controlled oil to refiners using high-priced, uncontrolled oil. in an effort to balance refiner costs. Incorporation of gasohol producers into the entitlement program is an attempt to provide an economic incentive sooner than that which will eventually be provided by complete crude oil decontrol. Thousands of U.S. ground troops may have been exposed to Agent Orange in South Vietnam, according to a General Accounting Office study. The report contradicts Defense Department assertions that troops did not enter the affected areas until 6 weeks after the herbicide, which contains dioxin, was sprayed. A federal judge has meanwhile ruled that a group of 362 veterans who claim to have suffered injuries-including birth defects in Volume 14, Number 1, January 1980
9
their children and cancer-as a result of exposure to Agent Orange may sue the manufacturers of the chemical. The companies are Dow Chemical, Monsanto, Thompson Hayward Chemical, Hercules Inc., and Diamond Shamrock. According to the veterans’ attorney, Victor Yannacone, Jr., the claim against the chemical companies is based on their having sold herbicides “advertised as safe while they contained one of the most powerful poisons known to man.”
STATES Governor Dixy Lee Ray of Washington has reopened that state’s nuclear waste dump. T h e dump, one of three in the country for low-level nuclear waste, had been closed along with one in Nevada following discoveries of improper procedures. The third dump, in South Carolina, refused to accept material normally sent to the other locations. In reopening the site, Governor Ray cited the need to deal with wastes generated by hospitals and medical research facilities. Medical treatment, diagnosis, and research had been threatened by the closings.
/
Washington Goo. Ray
Pennsylvania is suing the EPA to enforce SO2 standards in Ohio. According to the PA Department of Environmental Resources (DER), 2 coal-fired plants near Cleveland are currently emitting SO2 a t 4 to 5 times the allowed rate. The EPA has proposed to exempt the plants from the standard, an action which PA claims fails to consider the effects on downwind states: “Several areas of western Pennsylvania are experiencing difficulty in attaining and maintaining the National Ambient Air Quality Standards. Air pollution from upwind states is significantly contributing to this problem,” said DER Secretary Clifford L. Jones.
NIOSH 150-mg charcoal sampling tubes. Detection of this chemical, also known as perchloroethylene and used in dry cleaning and metal degreasing operations, can be to subparts per billion (ppb). Charcoal collection is done over 24 h; then the sample is desorbed with carbon disulfide and methanol, and analyzed by gas chromatography. Flow rate through the charcoal is 250 cm3/min. A lower detection of 0.1 ppb has been selected as an acceptable method. The method was developed through cooperation between EPA and Research Triangle Institute.
Establishment of a state-run corporation to oversee hazardous waste disposal is one of the recommendations of a special governor’s commission in New Jersey. The commission said that the improper disposal of 4-5 million tons of hazardous waste per year constitutes an “imminent threat” to health. The proposed corporation would be empowered to finance construction of treatment plants and dumps, and to overrule local decisions regarding the location of these facilities. The commission also suggested that much of the waste has commercial value and should be recycled. At present, some 60% of NJ’s hazardous wastes are dumped into the ocean, and a large portion of the remainder is thought to be disposed of ilIegally and in a manner which threatens groundwater.
Biological breakdown of many petroleum refinery/petrochernical wastes can be done with a mutant bacterial hydrocarbon degrader. Known as HYDROBACTMand developed by Polybac Corp (Allentown, PA), the mutant can work together with na t uratl y occurring bacteria to break down materials, such as benzenes, phenols, cresols, and cyanides, which are normally biorefractory. Similar bacterial formulations have been successfully used to clean spills of such bioresistant compounds as orthochlorophenol, dioxin, diesel fuel, and acrylonitrile. Sludge compactibility and removal efficiency are also improved.
MONITORING To determine suspected carcinogen tetrachloroethylene in air, an analytical method uses standard
TECHNOLOGY
A scrubber system for fine particles can use 70% as much energy as a conventional one, and cost less to run. That is what Air Pollution Technology, Inc. (San Diego, CA) says about the flux force/condensation (F/C) method of scrubbing, now being tested for EPA a t an iron-melting furnace of Metalblast,
The F/C scrubbing system tower Air
L-7
~~burner AfterCupota
1800“ F
Water
Condenser
10
Environmental Science & Technology
Inc. (Cleveland, O H ) . Not only are fine particles scrubbed out, but water vapor is also condensed from the gas being cleaned. G a s a t about 1800 OF has its combustibles burned out. Then, the gas is cooled and saturated with water vapor. Further cooling, together with flux features, causes fines to agglomerate, and float out on condensed moisture. A 20-MW coal combustor for magnetohydrodynamics(MHD) was successfully tested a t 5000 OF, and nearly 4 a t m pressure, for a total of 9 hours. A potassium salt provided the “seed” ions, according to Avco Everett Research Laboratory, Inc. (Everett, MA). With M H D , a combustion gas is heated to very high temperatures, “seeded” with ions, and run through a magnetic field to produce electricity. Conventional coal combustors run a t 3800 O F and 1 atm, Avco/Everett says. T h e company operated its first successful M H D generator in 1959, and says that it now has the most extensive operating M H D facilities in the U.S.
Containment of heat and pressure produced by high-let el radioactive wastes buried in canisters may be quite possible with argillite, a clayrich rock resembling some shales. AI Lappin of EG&G, Inc., which assisted with the tests, said that argillite showed “no comprehensive fracturing and no significant hole wall degradation, either one of which could signify a mechanical failure that would complicate the storage of radioactive wastes.” Experiments were done with a simulation heater 1 ft in diameter and 10 ft long. Temperatures varied from 40 OC, 1 1 ft from the heater, to 350 OC a t the heater’s center line, 250 days into the test. To accelerate the scale-up of improved and innovative coal cleaning operations, the Electric Power Research Institute (Palo Alto, C A ) has inaugurated a demonstration facility a t Homer City, PA, together with 3 utilities. Principal impuritics to be removed are ash-forming substance and pyritic sulfur. A fast way to remove water hardness and certain heavy metals is through careful dosing with sodium hydroxide. For this treatment with a “Pellet-Reactor”, developed by D C L Water Treatmentsystems Ltd. (Holland), the amount of sodi-
um ions left in the water normally presents no problem. Sodium hydroxide dosing is carefully measured; hardness-causing agents almost fully precipitate out as “marble corns”. Final pH is usually 8.2, but no more than 9.5. Untreated water is reacted in a fluidized bed with silversand, then treated with sodium hydroxide. Often, drinking standards can be met.
INDUSTRY To maintain the quality of a very clean trout stream-the Deerfield River in Massachusetts-The Kendall Co., a subsidiary of Colgate-Palmolive, built 2 waste processing facilities with $2.2 million in company funds. The idea was to prevent pollution. Kendall was singled out as a “Water Success Story” by EPA for this effort. Solvent refining of coal could lead to ways to make gasoline and home heating oil from raw coal, according to Southern Co. (Atlanta, GA), which has been working with solvent-refined coal (SRC) for nearly 10 years. Southern told D O E that the gasoline could cost 75-85C/gal in 1979 dollars, and that the liquids could be made from even “the dirtiest high-sulfur coal.” The company, toget her with W heelabra torFrye and Air Products and Chemicals, plans an S R C demonstration plant near Newman, KY, for 6000 tpd of coal. If started now, the plant could be operating by late 1983. Its cost would be $650-725 million.
To prove the recycling potential of polyester soft-drink bottles, Goodyear (Akron, O H ) has built a pilot plant. Bottles will be crushed, and paper, aluminum, polyester, and polyethylene fractions separated by means of gravity, and air and water classification. Goodyear sees profits because of high recycled-polyester demand. Need a data base concerning the environmental impact of coal-fired power plants? You might try the Water Resources Center of the University of Wisconsin- Madison. The data base grows out of information from the Columbia Generating Station (Portage, WI), compiled by the center since 1971. Chemical studies, biological effects, pre- and post-operational measurements of pollution and
other parameters are included. Many variables have been measured simultaneously and computerized. The project is supported by utilities, EPA, and the State of Wisconsin. Results a r e to be published in EPA’s Ecological Research Series.
Many familiar fruits and vegetables may disappear from supermarket shelves because of excessive government regulation. This is the view of Jack Early, speaking as president of the National Agricultural Chemicals Association ( N A C A , Washington, DC). H e said that pesticidemakers cannot justify spending “huge sums” to protect certain specialty crops, such as cucumbers and tomatoes, when those sums are better spent to protect the higher profit, major crops market. Early warned that fruit/vegetable production could fall by up to 30%, and that 30-40% rather than 17% of disposable income might be spent on food by the consumer. H e blamed EPA’s “zero-risk philosophy, and demand for product safety data beyond any reasonable requirements.”
NACA President Early
The most reasonabk approach to the Solar Bank Bill is S.17 16, rather than H.R. 605, the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA, Washington, DC), believes. S E l A points out H.R. 605 complications in formulas for awarding loans as they relate to prevailing interest rates, maximum allowable dollar amounts, family income level, and other factors, in the marked-up version. Also, H.R. 605 is tied into the proposed Energy Security Trust Fund, while S.17 16 is not. S E l A hopes to see certain cumbersome elements of H.R. 605 removed during further mark-up, but fears that S. 17 16 consideration by the Senate may run afoul of the S A L T I I debate. Nevertheless, a bill may shortly be on President Carter’s desk. Volume 14, Number 1, January 1980
11
Dr. Robert L. Harris, Jr. University of North Carolina
Dr. Julian B. Andelman, professor of water chemistry at the Graduate School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh, Pa.), received his A.B. degree in biochemical sciences from Harvard College and his Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn. Prior to joining the raculty of the University of Pittsburgh in 1963, he worked for two years at the Bcll Tclephone Laboratorics as a research chemist. Dr. Andelman currently is treasurer of the Pittsburgh Section of the ACS, and has been a member of the ACS Committee of Environmental Improvcmcnt. H e has been a
consultant and adviser to the World Health Organimtion and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and has served on various committees and panels of the National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council. His rcscarch and profcssional interests ccnter around the chemistry of trace materials in natural waters and treatment systems, and their significance for human health. Dr. Robert L. Harris, Jr. is professor of environmental engineering at the School of Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He received a B.S. in chemical
engineering from the University of Arkansas, an M.S. in environmental engineering from Harvard University, and a Ph.D. in environmental sciences and engineering from U N C at Chapel Hill From I949 to 1970, he worked for the U.S. Public Health Service, first as an industrial health engineer, and later as director of the Bureau of Abatement and Control of the National Air Pollution Control Administration. Dr. Harris is director o f t h e American Industrial Hygiene Association and is a member or the Safety and Occupational Health Study Section of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.
CIRCLE 14 ON READER SERVICE CARD
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