Economic methods for multipollutant analysis and evaluation

Book · Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 1985

OSTI ID:6122336

Baasel, W D

Since 1572, when miners' lung problems were first linked to dust, man's industrial activity has been increasingly accused of causing disease in man and harm to the environment. Since that time each compound or stream thought to be damaging has been looked at independently. If a gas stream caused the problem the bad compound compositions were reduced to an acceptable level and the problem was considered solved. What happened to substances after they were removed usually was not fully considered until the finding of an adverse effect required it. Until 1970, one usual way of getting rid of many toxic wastes was to place the, in landfills and forget about them. The discovery of sickness caused by substances escaping from the Love Canal landfill has caused a total rethinking of that procedure. This and other incidents clearly showed that taking a substance out of one stream which is discharged to the environment and placing it in another may not be an adequate solution. What must be done is to look at all streams leaving an industrial plant and devise a way to reduce the potentially harmful emissions in those streams to an acceptable level, using methods that are inexpensive. To illustrate conceptually how the environmental assessment approach is a vast improvement over the current methods, an example evaluating effluents from a coal-fired 500 MW power plant is presented. Initially only one substance in one stream is evaluated. This is sulfur oxide leaving in the flue gas.

• OSTI ID: 6122336
• Resource Relation: Related Information: Pollution engineering and technology: 25
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT
20 FOSSIL-FUELED POWER PLANTS
29 ENERGY PLANNING
POLICY AND ECONOMY
AIR POLLUTION
ECONOMICS
FOSSIL-FUEL POWER PLANTS
EMISSION
SULFUR DIOXIDE
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS
EARTH ATMOSPHERE
ECOLOGICAL CONCENTRATION
ENVIRONMENT
ENVIRONMENTAL EXPOSURE PATHWAY
ENVIRONMENTAL TRANSPORT
EVALUATION
POLLUTANTS
POLLUTION SOURCES
CHALCOGENIDES
MASS TRANSFER
OXIDES
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
POLLUTION
POWER PLANTS
SULFUR COMPOUNDS
SULFUR OXIDES
THERMAL POWER PLANTS
010800* - Coal
Lignite
& Peat- Waste Management
200200 - Fossil-Fueled Power Plants- Waste Management
290300 - Energy Planning & Policy- Environment
Health
& Safety