17-02-2025
Maryland must support in-state renewable energy – including waste-to-energy
The smokestack of Baltiimore's waste-to-energy facility, which currently receives a renewable energy subsidy that environmentalists and some lawmakers want to eliminate. (File photo by Joe Ryan/Capital News Service)
An important debate about Maryland's energy future is taking shape in Annapolis. Lawmakers are considering major changes to the way the state incentivizes renewable energy generation and how it will go about meeting its ambitious renewable energy goals.
Maryland wants to derive 50% of its retail electricity from renewable sources by 2030. We only generate 12% of our current energy supply from renewable sources, and Maryland consumes almost six times as much energy as it produces.
In other words, achieving the goal won't be easy.
Against this backdrop, the General Assembly is considering legislation to eliminate subsidies Maryland waste-to-energy (WTE) companies receive for creating renewable energy under the state's Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard (RPS). Such a policy would be misguided, hampering efforts to achieve the state's renewable energy goal and resulting in significant economic and environmental consequences.
WTE is one of Maryland's largest in-state sources of renewable energy. Revoking its renewable designation and eliminating the subsidies that promote WTE will reduce the volume of recognized renewable energy generation in the state. To replace that capacity, Maryland will have to increase its reliance on out-of-state sources. That means sending the subsidies currently going to Maryland WTE companies to providers based in other parts of the country.
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Renewable energy credits tied to solar and wind power are expensive, in limited supply and not always available when needed, which means Maryland is almost certain to replace in-state WTE credits with biosolids, landfill gas and other 'dirtier' forms of energy. Much of this energy comes from states where political leaders actively promote fossil fuel use over renewables: Virginia, West Virginia and Ohio.
Without WTE as a disposal option, Baltimore, for example, would have to find a new means of managing the 700,000 tons of waste that its WTE facility safely processes each year. The options are to absorb all that waste at its current landfill, which is nearly full, or export the trash to landfills out of the state.
In the end, taxpayers would have to pay to expand local landfill capacity or for some other jurisdiction to receive all that waste. The Less Waste Better Baltimore report prepared for Baltimore City's Department of Public Works makes clear that either scenario would cost taxpayers many millions of dollars. .
The environmental and public health impacts from landfills would be even worse. The primary out-of-state disposal site for Baltimore waste is a regional landfill in Virginia – a 350-mile roundtrip route. Hauling so much additional waste to distant landfills would require thousands of additional tractor-trailer trips on our roads.
Exhaust from fossil fuel vehicles is by far the leading cause of the air pollution we breathe, so landfilling 700,000 more tons of waste each year will have a devastating effect on public health and the environment. As waste breaks down in landfills, it emits methane, a greenhouse gas that is 84 times more powerful than carbon dioxide (CO2) measured over a 20-year span, and 28 times more potent than CO2 when measured over a 100-year period.
Without careful management, landfilling can also cause significant odors and attract pests such as mosquitoes and rodents. Landfilling was used in the 18th and 19th centuries as a cheap and easy way to discard trash. Today, localities realize how costly it can actually be.
Marylanders will be paying into the renewable energy market regardless of which industries are included in the RPS. The responsible policy is to invest as much of that funding as possible in Maryland, where it has the greatest local impact.
I have researched and published numerous reports on the safety and efficiency of WTE. There is no question that modern WTE facilities operate well below even the most stringent emissions limits designed to safeguard public and environmental health.
That having been said, even those opposed to WTE should recognize it makes more sense to invest in the best available WTE advancements than to invest in long-hauling waste via fossil fuel-powered vehicles to faraway disposal sites. Baltimore's WTE plant is now among the cleanest WTE facilities operating in the world, thanks in part to capital improvements made possible by renewable energy credits.
Maryland should continue pursuing its ambitious renewable energy goals using safe and efficient in-state sources rather than exporting critical resources to out-of-state operators with no incentive to reinvest in our communities.
