Celebrating Thanksgiving

In a departure from the usual, I'll scoot away from my normal business and talk a little about Thanksgiving.  Although most Americans associate this holiday with the early Pilgrims in New England, Thanksgiving is celebrated throughout the world in some fashion.

For example, our wonderful neighbors to the north celebrate their Thanksgiving in October.  In 1957, the Canadian Parliament proclaimed:

"A Day of General Thanksgiving to Almighty God for the bountiful harvest with which Canada has been blessed – to be observed on the 2nd Monday in October."

I had the very good fortune of hosting a visitor from Korea yesterday who told me about their Thanksgiving, a wonderful three-day holiday celebrated about the time of the autumnal equinox.

For me, I am blessed to have my 85 year old mother coming to visit me from Greensboro, NC and with her visit, make her wonderful creamed onions, a New England tradition.  So to all of you out there, my best wishes for a wonderful holiday full of bounty and family.

MACT Update Rev. 1

MACT update

In my posting of September 15, I gave an update on the boiler MACT rules from the EPA.  Among the salient points were 1) October 24^th was the “final” date, and 2) that the ABMA (and by extension us at E-Tech) supported these changes.  Because of a House of Representative initiative early in October, a monkey wrench has been thrown into the mix.  The United States EPA announced on October 24^th that it was not going to propose revised air pollution standards for boilers on October 31 as previously planned but instead would issue, by November 30, a proposed rule.  This would impact area source boilers (the bulk of what most of us see; those that are smaller than 100mm btu/hr), major source boilers, and solid waste incinerators.  From my earlier blog, the major source boiler leg of this trio hade been on hold.  What happens next?  It’s anyone’s guess but stay in touch for more information.

News from the ABMA

As I mentioned in the section above, the ABMA has taken a proactive role in the MACT debate and who better, when you think of it?  One of the slams against the EPA from the Republican side of the House has been that all of these new regulations will add to the deficit and take away from jobs.  Politics aside, I’m not one for having to choose between my job and my health (or for others, their safety).  So we should all ask the question as to who knows best on what might be possible under MACT: the boiler companies?; or Congressmen pandering to special interests? 

The ABMA will be putting out a couple of ads in a variety of familiar magazines in our industry (Power Engineering magazine, Power magazine, Engineered Systems magazine and others) offering advice and counsel on this topic.  In addition a special web site will be set up – it’s not up yet – to answer questions relating to this important issue.  For those interested, the site will be Boiler MACT Facts from the ABMA.  I cannot tell you when it may be up and running.

I am putting a link to these ads on the E-Tech web site if you wish to look at them.   I do believe you’ll find them to be interesting and informative.

ABMA Boiler MACT ads

There are two of them and they're listed under "downloads".

To finish, here’s my blog quote of the day.  As Thanksgiving is right around the corner, it seems appropriate we honor that day.

Our rural ancestors, with little blest,
Patient of labour when the end was rest,
Indulged the day that housed their annual grain,
With feasts, and off'rings, and a thankful strain.

~Alexander Pope (1688-1744)