Costs of coal and electric power production: the impact of environmental control technologies for coal-cleaning plants. [Includes both coal cleaning and flue gas desulfurization costs]

Costs of 10 alternative environmental control technologies were calculated for three hypothetical and three actual cleaning plants. The cost of lime-limestone slurry coating ranged from $0.22 to $0.50 per ton of product coal. For one actual plant cleaning high-sulfur coal, the range of costs for the 10 alternatives was from $0.076 to $9.89 per ton of product coal, based on March 1978 costs. For the purpose of supplying electric utility customers, coal cleaning reduces the cost of meeting environmental standards because it is less expensive (potentially) to control the water pollution from the coal-cleaning plant than the air pollution from the utility power plant. Applying the less expensive environmental control technology options to coal-cleaning wastes adds approximately 0.2 to 0.4 mills/kWh to the costs of electric power production (1979 costs).