INFORMATION #1 05-11-2009 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Ms. Rebecca Haug April 30 2009 Page 2 of 3 Details on the test burn Great River Energy is proposing to conduct amulti-phase test burn. The first phase will consist of an engineering feasibility study that will assess fuel handling issues, identify fuel quality characteristics from multiple vendors that allow for efficient fuel combustion, evaluate ash handling issues, and provide sufficient operational experience with the fuel to enable a consistent four- to eight-hour test burn. The second phase will consist of four- to eight-hour burns during which air emissions stack testing will be conducted and ash samples will be collected for analysis. The second phase testing will provide operational and environmental data that will be used to ensure that TDF combustion can be accomplished within the confines of the air emissions permit on a long-term basis and that the impacts on the ash do not adversely impact ash disposal options. We anticipate up to 14 discrete days of test firing over the two phases, but if we find significant fuel differences among vendors or if fuel handling is an issue, we may require more days. Testing could start as early as May 25, 2009, and we anticipate completing the test phases by October 31, 2009. We are currently looking at three different possible fuel vendors. We may add other vendors as our work progresses. Fuel will be delivered to the site by semi trucks as processed (shredded) tires; we do not anticipate shredding tires at the Elk River site for the test burn. Each semi-trailer is expected to hold 15 to 20 tons of TDF. The TDF will be stored in the existing RDF receiving building. On a long-term average, each TDF truck would replace approximately three RDF trucks because TDF has a heating value approximately three times greater than RDF (15,000 Btu/lb vs. 5,500 Btu/lb). For the test burn, we would simply add the TDF to the RDF walking floor with the front end loader. 'This requires minimal engineering and requires no additional capital expenses for the test burn. Over the two phases of the test, we anticipate burning between 300 and 600 tons of TDF. Most of the testing will be conducted with TDF comprising 20 percent or less of the total fuel on a mass basis (8 tons TDF with 21 tons of RDF per hour). We may also do some testing at up to 80 percent TDF on a heat input basis. Testing will be primarily conducted between the hours of 7:00 am and 5:00 pm, but we may conduct some longer term overnight test runs. During both burning phases, we will monitor stack emissions with our existing continuous emissions monitoring systems (GEMS). During Phase 2, we will hire a third party firm to conduct stack emissions testing for our routine list of analytical parameters. The following table lists these analytical parameters and the method of measurement.