The Alliance for Industrial Efficiency recently submitted comments to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on its “Boiler MACT,” a set of rules to reduce hazardous air pollutants from the nation’s industrial boilers. (MACT stands for the “maximum available control technology” standards that must be met by these boilers.) The Alliance views the rules as an important means to enhance industrial efficiency, especially through the use of waste heat recovery (WHR) and combined heat and power (CHP) projects.

RED and the Alliance for Industrial Efficiency have submitted comments to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on how CHP and waste heat recovery (WHR) projects should be compensated for the reliability and stabilization benefits they provide to the electric grid.

The Creating Climate Wealth Summit—to be held in Washington, D.C. on May 3 and 4—will feature a track on distributed generation. The Carbon War Room, the conference’s organizer, says, “With new power plant regulations set to retire 20 percent of all coal capacity in the USA and transmission projects still facing stiff barriers, it looks like distributed generation is the way to go.”

Bloomberg Government, a new media outlet focused on the business implications of government, recently profiled the remarkable economic and environmental benefits of waste heat recovery and other energy recycling techniques. The article also covers the efforts of members of the Alliance for Industrial Efficiency — including RED, GE, Dow Chemical, Sierra Club, and others—to ensure this clean energy solution gets the recognition it deserves in Washington.

December was a great month for those of us who get excited when energy recycling gets the attention it deserves. First, Congress passed the bipartisan tax bill, and it included the extension of the Treasury Grant Program for combined heat and power (CHP). Then, McClatchy Newspapers ran an outstanding article on the economic and environmental benefits of energy recycling.