In the early 20th century, before the rust began to bloom on the manufacturing centers spread across the Midwest, one of the largest producers of car tires was located in Youngstown, Ohio — the Republic Rubber Company. So, there’s a certain sense of both history and symmetry to a proposed plan for a novel energy plant in downtown Youngstown that would be fueled with gas made from old tires.
But neither the city government nor residents are embracing the idea of what SOBE Thermal Energy Solutions, the developer behind the project, has pitched as an innovative means of recycling and clean-power generation: in late December, the Youngstown city council unanimously passed a one-year moratorium on the project.
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Critics say approving the plant would amount to plopping a tire incinerator in the midst of the city’s downtown, which is not only predominately Black, but is also home to a jail, a college dormitory, and has a long history of environmental justice issues.
Much like “blue” hydrogen, the tires-to-gas system that would be utilized at the plant is a newer energy technology that is marketed as being eco-friendly, while the details strongly suggest otherwise.
The facility, slated for an old coal steam plant, would process 88 tons of shredded tires a day using a process called pyrolysis: the rubber scraps would be superheated in a low-oxygen environment, breaking the material down so that the carbon contained in the tires can be extracted, yielding both oil and gas, as well as another byproduct called carbon black. The gas would then be used as a fuel replacement for the coal that powered the steam plant up until around 2017, providing heating and cooling for nearby buildings.
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SOBE owner David Ferro has gone to great lengths in the press to argue that pyrolysis is not the same as incinerating tires — which releases a substantial array of toxic air, soil, and water polluting substances, including sulfur dioxide and carbon monoxide, and heavy metal carcinogens such as mercury.
However, Ferro says that the energy produced is comparable to natural gas in terms of carbon emissions, and with roughly 274 million scrap tires generated in the U.S. annually, there’s plenty of source material. But after flirting with dropping Clean Air Act emissions standards for pyrolysis in 2020, the Environmental Protection Agency decided last year to continue regulating the process as a form of waste combustion and incineration.
In Youngstown, both the community and local government appear unwilling to welcome a new source of pollution when the city is still grappling with the public health effects of its heavy manufacturing past — which weigh particularly heavily on Black residents.
“The neighborhood that this facility is proposed to be sited in is already very disadvantaged when it comes to public health in the 99th, 98th, 97th, 95th, and 90th percentile for asthma, diabetes, heart disease, low life expectancy and being low-income households,” Vicky Abou-Ghalioum, an organizer with the Buckeye Environmental Network, told Ideastream Public Media.
And as the Midwest Building Decarbonization Coalition tweeted, “When waste-to-energy plants are proposed in predominately Black neighborhoods… that’s NOT environmental justice.”
It’s not just activists who have made the argument that downtown Youngstown might not be the best location: even the EPA noted last year that “the neighborhoods around the facility have some of the highest levels in the state for many environmental justice indexes” in a letter to state regulators.
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SOBE is still awaiting a decision from state regulators for an operating permit, but even if it is granted, the plant would also have to follow all local regulations too — and Youngstown elected officials have hinted that they may make it impossible for SOBE to do so during the moratorium.
“As a city, we do have the authority to regulate land use decisions within the city limits,” council president Tom Hetrick told WOSU Public Media. “So, this moratorium is exercising those rights that the city of Youngstown does have.” Hetrick has suggested that the city might further exercise those rights by updating the zoning for the area around the old steam plant to ban pyrolysis altogether.