Teru Talk Newsletter

Volume IV, Issue 2, January 13, 2014 

Teru Talk by Michael Theroux (pronounced "Terú")  

Be careful picking at loose threads; you never know which one will unravel the whole shebang. When we select one term common to the overall regulatory framework to change, it is imperative that we consider every place that one change will have an impact. Changing one part is bound to produce a ripple effect throughout the whole mess.

This week, we've been agonizing over proposed California Senate Bill (SB) 498 in its current form, another waste conversion bill sponsored by one of SoCal's state legislative representatives, Senator Lara. The proposed SB 498 language would amend Section 40106 of California's Public Resources Code (PRC) by expanding the legal definition of one crucial term, "Biomass Conversion." Most of 40106 is left alone for now. After umpteen revisions and simplifications, two primary changes are proposed in the current version; the first is a conciliatory gesture designed to at least claim some minor credit for landfill diversion, while the second tries to heal all wounds.

First, SB 498 proposes to lump the use of ALL conversion technology into this "Biomass Conversion" categorical redefinition. The result is that all forms of clean conversion technology would now be reduced to the level of "combustion" or "transformation" in the law, and falling under the 10% limitation for landfill reduction credit. Proponents have fought long and hard to receive landfill diversion credits for non-combustive thermal waste conversion. With 498, we get just that, but strictly limited to the same ridiculously low 10% diversion credit that has ham-strung the big biomass burners for so long.

The second proposed change points to why this limitation is illogical and simply wrong. PRC 40106 provides a short list of feedstock types that have been identified as fuel for biomass combustion. SB 498 expands the definition of Biomass Conversion without also expanding and updating the list of applicable biomass feedstock. We are left to wonder whether processing biomass types not on the list such as food waste or more broadly, "post-recycling MSW residuals" will also be considered biomass conversion with access to the limited diversion credits.

A new sentence would be tagged onto the end of 40106: "For the purposes of this section, “conversion technology” means a method capable of converting biomass into marketable products and fuels through a noncombustion thermal, chemical, or biological process." Is anaerobic digestion, a biological process, now a biomass conversion technology under this section?

SB 498 gets this one right: conversion is intended to recover usable materials from waste-sourced detritus and prepare them for return to the marketplace, consistent with the state's legal definition of Recycling. Yet if indeed Conversion equates to Recycling, what possible excuse can there be for not crediting all of the amount converted as having been deferred from landfill disposal?