Burning Tires for Power: Green Energy or Health Hazard?

Green is not the color most people would associate with burning tires.

But that's how developers of a proposed tire-fueled power plant in hardscrabble Erie, Pa., describe their project. They say the plant, which would turn 900 tons of tires each day into a 90-megawatt power supply, would be an ecologically beneficial investment since it would keep tires out of landfills or illegal dumps and generate electricity with one-tenth the emissions of traditional coal-fired power plants.

If it receives needed state approval, Erie Renewable Energy's project would be the largest power plant in the world burning "tire-derived fuel," or TDF.

Such plants are relatively common in Asia, Europe and the United States, but they usually operate on a much smaller scale -- they are often built in a modified existing facility to fuel one local industry like a paper mill or cement kiln. The ERE plant, if it is built, would be the world's largest tire-burning power plant and one of relatively few constructed solely for that purpose. It would consume 72,000 tires a day and produce enough electricity for about 75,000 homes.

Opponents concerned about health and environmental effects say power generation is just a way to disguise what is really a giant tire incinerator.

"I think there's some definite green-washing going on here," said Dr. Neil Carman, clean air program director for the Texas Sierra Club, who has testified against such plants.

ERE's Web site says the tires would be shredded into 2-inch pieces and burned suspended in sand in two boilers, in a completely closed environment, with top-notch emissions control and fire prevention technology.

The company's Web site also says opponents like to "conjure an image of uncontrolled tire fires with clouds of black smoke billowing into the air. ... Nothing could be farther from the truth." The Web site promises local residents would not find their cars and homes coated in black soot or ash, as often happened when an International Paper mill operated on the same site.

But residents who have formed the group KEEP (Keep Erie's Environment Protected) aren't buying it.

"They are calling this a completely green, renewable thing; well, burning tires isn't considered renewable by anybody," said KEEP member Dennis Stratton, an electrical engineer. "They talk about gasification and liquefaction. You're going to be throwing tire chunks into an oven at 1,600 degrees; I don't care what you call it, it's still going to be burning."

ERE notes that there are 275 million waste tires in the United States, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, with one generated per person per year. The Web site (ERE founder Greg Rubino declined to speak for this story) says that since scrap tires are breeding grounds for mosquitoes, they are a source of West Nile virus. The company presents the power plant as a direct solution to Pennsylvania's supposed scrap tire problem.

Environmentalists point out there are other proven uses for old tires that don't involve burning, including recycling them into rubber mats or into material used to pave highways.

In 2005 strident local opposition torpedoed plans for a tire-burning power plant near the Twin Cities that would have generated 20 megawatts -- much less than the proposed Erie plant.

ERE's Web site says its emissions would be well within all legal standards and up to 10 times lower than those of coal-burning plants. But environmentalists and some residents argue that federal clean air standards are too lenient and don't regulate many dangerous metals, organic compounds and tiny particles. When synthetic rubber tires are burned, the byproducts would include highly toxic beryllium, lead, cadmium, selenium, silver, manganese and chromium 6 (of Erin Brockovich fame), according to Carman.