You are here:
PRELIMINARY PERFORMANCE AND COST ESTIMATES OF MERCURY EMISSION CONTROL OPTIONS FOR ELECTRIC UTILITY BOILERS
Citation:
Srivastava*, R K., C B. Sedman*, AND J D. Kilgroe*. PRELIMINARY PERFORMANCE AND COST ESTIMATES OF MERCURY EMISSION CONTROL OPTIONS FOR ELECTRIC UTILITY BOILERS. Presented at AWMA Conference, Salt Lake City, Utah, 6/18-22/2000.
Description:
The paper discusses preliminary performance and cost estimates of mercury emission control options for electric utility boilers. Under the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, EPA had to determine whether mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants should be regulated. To aid in this determination, preliminary estimates of performance and cost of activated-carbon-based mercury control technologies were developed, based on relatively few data points from pilot-scale tests. The paper presents the methodology used in arriving at these estimates, estimated capital and annual operation and maintenance costs, and results of sensitivity analyses conducted on these cost estimates. Results reveal that, for most applications, capital costs of activated carbon injection (ACI) mercury control technologies may be comparable to those associated with low nitrogen oxide burners (LNBs). Also total annual costs may be comparable to, or in some cases slightly higher than, corresponding costs for LNBs. Moreover, ACI requirements appear to dominate the total annual costs of ACI-based technologies. The effect of several factors, known to affect the adsorption of mercury on activated carbon, may not be entirely accounted for in the relatively few pilot-scale data points that comprised the basis for this work. Ongoing research is expected to address these issues.