New Hampshire House passes pyrolysis bill

The New Hampshire House of Representatives have passed House Bill 1515, which allows the use of pyrolysis technology on construction and demolition (C&D) debris, a report by the New Hampshire Business Review says. The state banned incinerating C&D debris, except in small quantities, for more than a decade.

Pyrolysis is a chemical treatment of carbon-based fuel at a high temperature, which creates gas that can be burned. The report says clean wood would be the only feedstock for this method while contaminated wood would be extracting, providing a cleaner ash after the process.

Rep. Greg Smith, R-Pelham, says in the report that the bill is “simply enabling legislation that can have many economic benefits if it can be done safely” and that the pyrolysis will “produce green energy for a green economy.”

Other representatives, such as Rep. Bob Backus, D-Manchester, and Rep. John Mann, D-Alstead, say in the report that C&D has many toxic elements such as arsenic, mercury and asbestos that can lead to health problems and that New Hampshire’s citizens do “not wish to be guinea pigs for an experiment.”

The House sent the bill to the Senate on a 182-147 vote.

C&D incineration has been banned since 2007 when the Department of Environmental Services (DES) withdrew a permit for a firm called Bio Energy. The report says the permit allowed Bio Energy to emit more lead into the atmosphere than all other stationary sources combined.

Since then, C&D debris has been landfilled, which the report says is an expensive disposal method with environmental drawbacks. The bill will give the DES an opportunity to try a new method of disposal.