Industrial demand for western coal in the Great Lakes region

Technical Report · Sat Sep 01 00:00:00 EDT 1979

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/5722153· OSTI ID:5722153

Krohm, G. C.

The Great Lakes industrial coal market, though currently much smaller than utility use, is expected to grow by as much as 3% per year until 1985. Although the potential for industrial coal use appears to be growing modestly, the share of this market captured by Western coal is critically affected by air quality regulations. Existing and projected ambient air quality violations in the vicinity of port cities will prohibit new coal use. This will be a particularly severe constraint in the center of the industrial core areas of Buffalo, Erie, Cleveland, Toledo, and Detroit. In addition to ambient air quality problems, more stringent New Source Performance Standards may make it prohibitively expensive to burn coal. The economic advantage of Western coal may be minimal in comparison to locally available high-sulfur coal because it costs just about as much to use a high-efficiency scrubber with low-sulfur coal as with high-sulfur coal. Under a standard of 1.2 lb SO/sub 2/ per million Btu of heat input, Western coal can be expected to capture a large share of the new boiler market within 75 miles of the Great Lakes ports. With a sulfur standard more stringent than the above, the market for Western coal will vanish even for users immediately adjacent to the port. Western coal is only attractive in the East due to its low sulfur content, which under some conditions allows the end user to avoid expensive sulfur control technologies. The Great Lakes shipping system represents the most economic way of moving coal from the Western states to major portions of the industrial Midwest and Northeast. The Great Lakes system can move coal to users in the vicinity of port cities at costs that are less than half the cost of the most economic rail route.

• Research Organization: Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: W-31-109-ENG-38
• OSTI ID: 5722153
• Report Number(s): ANL/CNSV-TM-13
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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