Action Alert
Tire-to-energy plant proposed for Erie
Erie Renewable Energy, LLC is proposing to build a new tire-to-energy plant on the site of a former paper mill in Erie Pennsylvania. The proposed plant would burn an estimated 80,000 tires per day on a site surrounded by residential neighborhoods and schools. The site is only a few hundred yards from Lake Erie.
With over 100 hazardous air pollutants expected to be released into the environment by the plant, opponents of the proposal are concerned about the health and environmental risks associated with the emissions, which will not require monitoring.
Controversy over the proposed plant increased on January 17 when the Erie County Environmental Coalition hosted a 90 minute forum, a prelude to a hearing held by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection a few weeks later. The proposed plant would cost $235 million, produce 100 megawatts of electricity and employ 60 full-time employees.
The extreme amount of controversy surrounding the proposed plant has caused Erie City Council to recently pass a resolution to draft an ordinance that would require the proposed plant and any future polluter that requires an air quality permit under Act 5 to install continuous emissions monitoring equipment to assure that the plant complies with any permits that it is issued.
For more information visit www.stopburningtires.com.
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2 comments for “Tire-to-energy plant proposed for Erie”
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© 2008 Great Lakes News. 
I have experience with tires to energy plants. While in Japan I was at a tire plant in Toyota City which burned scrap tires. The process was clean, no burnt rubber smell from stack emissions. What do we propose to do with scrap tires landfills are not the answer. Burning extracts the energy contained and with the proper scrubbers on the flues the emissions can be clean.
Burning does release carbon dioxide which adds to global warming, however if we can reduce the equilvalant oil and coal burned for energy the loading to the atmosphere would be a wash and we would have saved filling our landscape with old tires.
I work in the energy field I just got done with a scrubber in Indiana, Pa at Keystone power plant.
That will clean the pollution out of the stacks. So I do not understand why everybody knows everything about the tires energy plant and they know there is 100 hazardous air pollutants. When we try to bring business in erie. Do you all see there is no jobs for anybody and that would help some people in erie.
I Think that the people that think they know everything should do what they do for a leaving and let the people that know what they know about the energy plant do their job.