Eastern Railroad Discussion > The "noose" tightens on coal plants

EPA has defined coal ash (the result of coal burned in a furnace) as a substance requiring special handling. This is one step short of declaring it as haz-mat product. Ironically, it could increase the amount of business on railroads. The main EPA interest is a fear that the ash slurry ponds have begun to contaminate water tables underneath.

Many utilities dump the ash into ponds, some ow which sit for decades, polluting ground water, or occasionally breaking through dams. Others have found a resale market for the product, mixing it with cement or using it in particle board, or some paving products. All of which need to be hauled away from the plant. Coal in, by rail, some waste out, by rail.

The cost of a dam break are substantial. A Tennessee Valley Authority dam break caused more than a billion dollars in damage as a coal ash slurry polluted nearby rivers.

I worked for a Haz Mat Dump Site in the Canon City Colo area for about 6 months. We took most haz mat of any kind and, well disposed of it so to say. The William Clark Coal Power Plant at the west end of Canon City needed to get rid of there ash and we took it. I would go and pick up a 48 ft open top trailer full of ash 4-6 times daily. Upon arrival at our facility we would dump said ash onto the ground and then a front end loader would push it into a pit. This is where the liquid haz mat was emptied into. Once the pit was full we would use a loader to "mix" the liquid with the ash and then take what was left and dump onto the waste area of the facility. That ash was nasty, got all over everything and was hard to get out of you're clothes after working it for half a day. Some of the product we took in was nasty also. I recall seeing Grease pit solids, spill remains, ink's from printing presses, oil residues, just about anything. The ash seemed to work good in soaking up and making dirt of most liquids. But it was a pain in the tuckus to do. Ben

Lack. not sure what your source was, but this news is actually a gain for coal, EPA wanted the ash classified as a hazardous waste and the court decided it was not. As your source suggested, the fact that in many cases the ash has found safe uses in paving means that the existing regulations continue in place.

RichM Wrote:
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> Lack. not sure what your source was, but this news
> is actually a gain for coal, EPA wanted the ash
> classified as a hazardous waste and the court
> decided it was not. As your source suggested, the
> fact that in many cases the ash has found safe
> uses in paving means that the existing regulations
> continue in place.

That is what I saw. Of note I have no idea of the process but they said the ash was unintended consequence of scrubbers.

What ever you do there is rarely a magic bullet, always consequences.

Bob

Wall Street Journal article. The EPA wanted to classify it as a haz-mat, but failed on this go around. But the slurry ponds will be outlawed, that means the stuff will have to be better secured or removed from the property.

Hence the "good for rail" and maybe for trucks, too.

A bit of irony in this. Coal ash has some physical characteristics that make it a pain to handle ( most notably that it tends to make a gooey mess when mixed with water, then set up like cement when it dries. )But this property is also part of its value.

One of the better ways of dealing with large volumes of contaminated soil is to solidify it in place using a little bit of cement and, you guessed it, ash. It's a win win for everybody. The cost of the cleanup goes down because you don't have to hog and haul all that soil, you burn less fuel than an ordinary cleanup project would take, and you end up with a soil which is stronger and easier to build on than what was there originally. Using augers and a big crane, you can treat soils 30 or 40 feet down, where excavation is big time expensive. And the contaminants are locked in a solid matrix that doesn't leach into groundwater. If the original soil was really stinky (like a creosote or petroleum-soaked soil often will be) the solidification process takes care of that, too. What's not to love about that?

Ash is also a major component in flow able fill, widely used as backfill for utility trenches, etc.

The only problem is that there's so much ash out there that wel'll never have a use for it all.

> The only problem is that there's so much ash out
> there that wel'll never have a use for it all.

Ding ding ding. Here in the Carolinas, Duke Energy has about 100 million tons of the stuff. That's not a typo. Not enough concrete being made in the southeast to absorb that much! They are now looking for abandoned mines to load it into, so they can get it away from rivers where the power plants are (or were).

But the interesting part is, they're planning to use rail to move the ash from the plants to the mines. This is a windfall for NS and CSX, although the traffic will be limited to the Carolinas and Virginia.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/20/14 07:18 by ctillnc.

It's kind of an interesting loading problem too... many years ago I was working with an engineering design firm that was building an ash loading facility at a power plant. I'll defer to the real railroad guys here, but one of the issues was roof hatch placement on the covered hoppers, I think I recall being told the power plant needed to specify round vs. oblong hatches so the feeders aligned properly.

I've seen fly ash loaded into open hoppers that were then covered with fiberglass lids. The stuff certainly did look like it was soupy when wet - and could get very hard after drying.

For better or worse, cheap natural gas and alternatives will continue to cut into the market share for coal. As solar becomes more efficient and affordable, we may have panels on our homes.

Even here in Indiana, which can be rather gloomy in winter, solar farms are sprouting up, especially in vacant industrial lots as well as windmills in the more windy parts of the state.

Thankfully, intermodal double stacking, the return of the vehicle business, AC locomotives and other productivity improvements allow the carriers to stay healthy.

But maybe, just maybe it will drive them to really work for the highly profitable loose carload business as well. CSX relied on coal forever, to the detriment of other important sectors.

NYC6001 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> For better or worse, cheap natural gas and
> alternatives will continue to cut into the market
> share for coal. As solar becomes more efficient
> and affordable, we may have panels on our homes.
>
> Even here in Indiana, which can be rather gloomy
> in winter, solar farms are sprouting up,
> especially in vacant industrial lots as well as
> windmills in the more windy parts of the state.
> (snip)

The cost benefit analysis on solar hot water is exceptionally good in many areas of the country. Far better than solar electric. Not as sexy as solar electric though

We had a customer who was building prefabricated dwelling walls using the ash as a filler, worked very
well and added substantial strength to the concrete. As mentioned, it would be a little tough to use all
of it, theirs came from the Page (AZ) power plant.

Out

That is interesting. I will be pleased to see the day when solar panels are ubiquitous on the roofs of all the McMansions out there, particularly in the sunnier states in the Southwest. Quite a bit of roof space on those homes.

Maybe ten years away?

Once the cost comes down even more on Solar, it's adaptation rates will soar.