Clean Energy In the News

State politicians and environmental agency representatives lauded the environmental friendliness of DTE Energy's Belle River Power Plant Friday as the China Township facility received the Clean Corporate Citizen designation from the Department of Environmental Quality.

To qualify for the award, a business must meet three objectives: comply with environmental regulations, install pollution prevention controls and maintain an environmental-management system.

Participation in the program is voluntary and grants the business regulatory benefits such as expedited permitting and less monitoring. It's the first time the Belle River plant has received the designation.

Presenting the award was DEQ director Steven Chester, who said he was impressed by DTE's comprehensive environmental training for employees and ecologically mindful practices.

"They're not required to do this but they do it because they have an environmental ethic," Chester said.

Production Manager John Dau said plant practices include the use of low-sulfur Western coal from Wyoming and Montana, which after it's burned creates a type of fly ash.

The plant uses covered conveyors and bag filters to prevent dust from entering the atmosphere and electrostatic precipitators to remove fly ash from the exhaust stacks, Dau said.

"It's about having overall systems in place," Dau said. "It's not just air or water pollution - it's everything."

Together, these and other measures have reduced particulate emissions by 89% among all DTE plants since the '70s, said Skiles Boyd, vice president of environmental affairs for DTE Energy.

Detroit Edison uses coal to generate about 80% of its total electrical output, with the remainder produced from nuclear fuel, natural gas and oil.

Though coal burning power plants may be getting cleaner, they still emit toxins, said Abby Rubley, field organizer for Environment Michigan in Ann Arbor.

"We're still relying on a non-renewable resource as our energy resource," she said. "It seems silly in a state where wind is abundant that we're not investing in that more."

Noble Environmental Power plans to build turbines for wind power in Watertown Township in 2007.

Power plants also have a ways to go in reducing mercury emissions, Rubley said.

According to the Earth Policy Institute, an environmental research organization in Washington, D.C., 1 in 6 U.S. women have blood mercury levels high enough to damage a developing fetus.

In April, Gov. Jennifer Granholm signed an order directing Michigan power plants to reduce their mercury emissions by 90% by 2015. Mercury emissions from DTE Energy Power Plants were the same in 2005 as they were in 1974; about 0.85 tons annually.

Coal consumption among DTE consumers has increased by 70% since 1974.

She said ideally, electricity in Michigan would be produced by renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power.