Potential economic benefits from process control of coal preparation plants

Technical Report · Thu Oct 01 04:00:00 EDT 1981

OSTI ID:6050410

Bradley, N C; Allgood, G O; Moyers, J C

In practically all US coal preparation plants, the machines and instrumentation and control devices are manually operated to clean the run-of-the-mine coal of mud, rock, and other contaminants that are removed from the earth with the desired product. The result is a large loss of a valuable natural resource; for example, in 1978, 25 million tons of coal (valued at $600 million) were discarded as waste in 96 million tons of refuse from coal treatment plants. Since a maximum recovery of clean coal during initial processing of the run-of-the mine material is vital to the nation's energy conservation program, such a waste of good coal needs to be lessened. A maximum recovery of clean coal cannot be achieved by manual control of operations. Data from coal cleaning plants, which show a wide range of variation of the ash and sulfur contents in product steams and of the calorific value of refuse, support this conclusion. Based on 1978 production figures, 10 million tons of discarded coal could have been saved by on-line measurement and control techniques. Measurement sensors for on-line control of coal cleaning processes should be developed because there are no commercial, moderate-cost sensors of medium accuracy (5 to 10%) available for such applications. An expenditure of approximately $10 million to develop measurement sensors and process control techniques for coal preparation would be recovered by the conservation of coal. If the indirect value of the preservation of coal resources for future use, through reduced waste, is 1 cent per million Btu (a conservative estimate), the annual benefit based on 1978 production would equal $2 million.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (USA)
• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-26
• OSTI ID: 6050410
• Report Number(s): ORNL-5736; ON: DE82000881
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT
013000* -- Coal
Lignite
& Peat-- Transport
Handling
& Storage
015000 -- Coal
Lignite
& Peat-- Economic
Industrial
& Business Aspects
COAL PREPARATION
COAL PREPARATION PLANTS
COMMINUTION
CONTROL
CONTROL SYSTEMS
COST BENEFIT ANALYSIS
DATA
ECONOMIC ANALYSIS
ECONOMICS
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
INDUSTRIAL PLANTS
INFORMATION
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
MEASURING INSTRUMENTS
NUMERICAL DATA
ON-LINE CONTROL SYSTEMS
ON-LINE MEASUREMENT SYSTEMS
ON-LINE SYSTEMS
PROCESS CONTROL
RESOURCE CONSERVATION