Coal availability and demand: Round I and Round II coal conversion candidates

This study has been performed to assess the availability of complying coals for 140 Round I and Round II coal conversion boiler candidates. Complying coals are defined as the maximum percent sulfur content of the coals that may be burned while allowing each power plant unit coal conversion candidate (hereafter referred to as unit) to meet the State Implementation Plan (SIP) emission limits on sulfur or sulfur dioxide. Since the ability of a unit to operate may be affected by use of other than design coal, a survey has been conducted to identify critical coal characteristics, their reported effects on power plant performance and tolerable limiting values. From this survey, estimates of the acceptable range of values for critical coal characteristics for each unit are then based on generic boiler considerations. These ranges are then compared with characteristic (coal quality) data for the available coal supply so that the coal supply may be matched with the projected future coal demand of each coal conversion unit. The result is a list of potential coal supply areas from which each unit may obtain an acceptable coal that will allow compliance with the SIP emission limits.The results of this study are summarized asmore » follows: Using the generic boiler limitations on the critical coal characteristics, compatible coals were selected for each of the 140 units from both the reported and estimated coal supplies. These are reported in Appendix A. For nine cyclone units the criterion on maximum ash softening temperature was relaxed so that all these units could have compatible supplies selected from the reported coal supply. This assumes that these units will be able to burn a coal with an ash softening point 100/sup 0/F to 200/sup 0/F higher than the generic boiler limitation or the criterion will be met by blending, washing, additives, etc.« less