Global warming skeptics like me are often asked how the mainstream media could have been so wrong about the “climate change” issue for so long. The answer is that the MSM’s fascination with global warming alarmism is nothing out the ordinary; it’s part of a decades-old pattern. The old media has been consistently, often laughably, wrong when it comes to covering environmental topics because they invariably stick to the green narrative: anyone associated with industry is ill-informed at best, or –- more often –-  just plain lying. On the other hand, the environmental movement is, in their world, the only reliable source of information.

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An example of this phenomenon came to my attention recently. In a March 21 story the Chicago Tribune and the paper’s chief industry hit-man, environmental reporter Michael Hawthorne, slammed a small business located in a poor Chicago suburb over supposed ecological transgressions that make the plant sound like the second-coming of Chernobyl. For the benefit of those of you who are not fellow technological weenies, I’ll limit this summation to a couple of the broad themes. But, should you be a fellow propeller-head, a few scientific details will follow as well.

Hawthorne attacked Geneva Energy, a small power plant located in Ford Heights, which is, as he admits, “one of the poorest suburbs in the U.S.” The plant burns old tires and, while recovering energy from worn-out rubber might seem like a pretty good idea to you and me, it represents a grave threat to the citizens of Ford Heights and mother earth as far as Hawthorne and the environmental groups he champions are concerned. The supposed “problems” fit into two broad categories:

1) A proposed bill in the Illinois General Assembly would classify burning tires for power as “renewable energy,” which in turn would allow the plant to sell its power at more profitable rates:

Adding the “incineration or burning of tires” to a measure intended to boost wind and solar energy would clear the way for Geneva Energy to reap lucrative green energy credits for its troubled incinerator in Ford Heights…

2) Burning tires is inherently dangerous and, worse, Geneva Energy is being allowed to do so with practically no oversight:

Environmental and community groups have long criticized what they consider lax pollution limits for the tire burner. Opponents object to, among other things, a lack of routine monitoring for hazardous, cancer-causing chemicals emitted by tire incineration, including benzene, butadiene and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

Sound’s pretty bad, doesn’t it? Except that we’re talking about a power plant that doesn’t emit over 100 tons per year of any air pollutant. By comparison, a coal plant will emit thousands of tons, even tens of thousand of tons, each year. By any objective measure, Geneva Energy is a pee-wee. The only thing that puts it on anybody’s radar is that the hydrocarbons it burns are held together in a way that Michael Hawthorne and his green buddies aren’t familiar with.

Full disclosure is in order before we move on. As columnist for Examiner Publications in the northwest Chicago suburbs, I have long been a critic of Michael Hawthorne and the Trib’s environmental coverage. Most of the time, I have no connection to the businesses that he and they attack, as demonstrated here and here. Neither I, nor the company that I work for in the day job — Mostardi Platt Environmental (which provides consulting services) — is or has been retained by Geneva Energy. Mostardi Platt’s sister company, which is owned by the same people, but is managed separately, is Platt Environmental Services (which measure emissions from smokestacks). Platt Environmental Services has done work for Geneva Energy. That relationship has played no role in shaping my opinion about Mr. Hawthorne or his employer, or about the way that they cover environmental issues. My opinion on that score was established long ago, but readers obviously deserve to be aware of the relationship between my primary employer and its sister company.

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Back to the questions at hand…

Should tire burning be classified as renewable energy? Yes, for a couple of reasons. First, that portion of the rubber fuel that comes from trees is renewable by anyone’s definition of the word. If you grow it and you burn it, it’s renewable. That’s the case with ethanol and other energy crops. Why shouldn’t the same be said of natural rubber? Second, let’s consider all the rubber, both natural and man-made. One can take used tires to a landfill along with other wastes, allow them to decompose over a period of about twenty years, recover the gas generated and burn that gas to generate energy. By every definition — including that contained in the proposed Waxman-Markey “cap and trade” bill — that process generates green, renewable energy. But, according to Hawthorne and his environmental buddies, if you bypass the twenty year waiting period and recover the energy available in a single day, it’s somehow not renewable.

As to the “lax pollution limits” and the scary list of chemicals that might be emitted at Geneva Energy, Hawthorne is simply parroting the environmental movement’s long-established dread of combustion of any kind. Ten years ago, environmental groups had communities across the nation whipped into a frenzy of fear as new, natural gas fired turbines were installed en masse. Natural gas, you may have noticed, is the stuff that most of us burn in our stoves, and far less efficiently than in a turbine. No matter, when they see a flame, environmental groups react with the same kind of panicked horror as did the monster in “Young Frankenstein.” There’s nothing inherently wrong, or dangerous about burning tires, municipal waste, coal or anything else. The rules are always the same: if you have a controlled process, you can burn any fuel completely and safely. If not, the fuel doesn’t actually matter; you’re going to have a problem.


Hawthorne is but a symptom of a larger disease: scientific ignorance and green bias within the old media. The AP’s Seth Borenstien and former New York Times reporter Andrew Revkin have churned out much the same flavor of drivel. It would be amusing, but for the fact that poor communities like Ford Heights suffer most from their baseless attacks. The people who own Geneva Energy will surely find other work if the plant is eventually shut down. But the people who live in Ford Heights? The tax revenue and jobs that Geneva Energy represent will disappear, as will Michael Hawthorne, who will move on to frighten another unsuspecting community for the sake of his green agenda.

TECHNICAL NOTES:

1. Hawthorne says that what he calls “green energy credits” are “intended to boost wind and solar energy.” What he is actually referring to here is Illinois’ “Renewable Portfolio Standards,” (RPS) which sets forth how much renewable energy much be produced in the state each year. The RPS is not limited to wind and solar energy. The portfolio also includes “biomass” and landfill gas, which Hawthorne pointedly doesn’t mention. Perhaps it would have been uncomfortable to do so, since natural rubber is part of the biomass definition and any sort of discarded rubber can generate landfill gas?

2. Isn’t it odd that there is not a single quote in this story from a public official in Ford Heights? Hawthorne talks about “environmental justice” (i.e., white people telling black people what’s good for them), but we don’t hear from the community that is supposedly affected. Could it be that Ford Heights doesn’t want to lose the jobs and revenue that would logically follow if Hawthorne’s story were taken to heart?

3. Hawthorne says that “…shredded tires increasingly are being recycled in asphalt, playground cushioning, athletic tracks and other products.” Are plants like Geneva Energy stealing tires from companies that make these products? If there is more value, that is to say more demand, related to such products, then excess tires that fuel a plant like Geneva Energy would not exist.

4. What about that scary list of chemicals? Those are chemicals that nobody who burns fuel is required to monitor, although anyone who burns fuel could emit them. EPA has a long-established, soundly-conceived policy with regards to these sorts of pollutants. They are generated when combustion is not “complete”, much as is the case when that old truck pumps out clouds of smoke roars down the highway. The easiest way to know if combustion is complete or not is to monitor carbon monoxide concentrations in a smokestack. If there’s not any carbon monoxide, then those scary chemicals that Hawthorne references won’t be formed. Illinois’ EPA does require Geneva Energy to monitor carbon monoxide for this purpose, as it does virtually every other power plant – large or small – in the state.

5. Hawthorne notes, ominously: “Because the plant doesn’t burn oil or coal, it isn’t required to report its emissions to the Toxics Release Inventory, a federal database that allows citizens to track industrial pollution in their communities.” However, that doesn’t mean that the plant isn’t required to report its toxic emissions to Illinois EPA outside of the Toxic Release Inventory. If he checked the latest National Emissions Inventory, Hawthorne could have discovered that the plant contributed less than 0.01% of all toxic emissions in Cook County, ranking 535th among all sources of toxic emissions in the county. According to USEPA data, that’s 353 spots behind another source of toxic emissions in Cook County, one that happens to be located in a much more densely populated area: the Chicago Tribune Company’s printing facility, which has emitted thousands of pounds of formaldehyde into the neighborhood each year. Seems like a story Micheal Hawthorne might want to check out.