Category: Economics Of Manufacturing Pollution Prevention

Over the next decades, a much larger fraction of fuels, chemicals, and materials will be produced from renewable plant materials. These biobased industrial products offer the potential for a much more sustainable economy based on environmentally superior products. This section briefly describes the associated costs of producing electricity, fuels, and chemicals from various feedstocks using…

Evidence that the economy is in conflict with Earth’s natural systems can be seen in the daily news reports of collapsing fisheries, shrinking forests, eroding soils, deteriorating rangelands, expanding deserts, rising carbon dioxide levels, falling water tables, rising temperatures, more destructive storms, melting glaciers, rising sea level, dying coral reefs, and disappearing species. These trends,…

EXAMPLE 7.13 WASTE‐TO‐ENERGY The City of Newcastle‐Upon‐Tyne, UK, incinerates some of its municipal RDF for electricity production. The city operates two 13 MW RDF boilers, which have 88% overall efficiency. The RDF has an average heat content 1650 Btu/lb. Calculate the following: SOLUTION This is essentially a mass and energy balance problem, in which solid wastes with…

During the 2001–2007 period, the WtE capacity increased by about 4 million MT/Y. Japan and China each built several plants based on direct smelting or on fluidized bed combustion of solid waste. Japan is the largest user in thermal treatment of MSW in the world, with 40 million T. Some of the newest plants use stoker technology and others…

Waste‐to‐energy (WtE) or energy‐from‐waste (EfW) is the process of generating energy in the form of electricity and/or heat from the primary treatment of waste. WtE is a form of energy recovery. Most WtE processes produce electricity and/or heat directly through combustion, or produce a combustible fuel commodity, such as methane, methanol, ethanol, or synthetic fuels.…

Most cost data that are available for making a preliminary or predesign estimation are only valid at that time they were developed. Because prices may have changed considerably with time due to changes in economic conditions, some methods must be used for updating cost data applicable at a past date to costs that are representative…

In Chapter 6, top‐down BACT analyses for criteria pollutants were presented for a gas turbine facility (Section 6.6). As an example, here we present the TACs and costs per ton pollutant of particulate matter removed against exhaust gas rate and boiler steam capacity for four control options: (i) multi‐cyclones (MC), (ii) Venturi scrubber (VS), (iii) electrostatic…

Costs associated with poor environmental and societal performance can be very large. Waste disposal feed, permitting costs, and liability costs can all be substantial. Wasted raw material, waste energy, and reduced manufacturing throughput are also consequences of wastes and emissions. Corporate image and relationships with workers and communities can suffer if performance is substandard. But…

Industrial air pollution prevention (P2) efforts have focused on both source and waste reduction, and on reuse and recycling. A key approach is preventing air pollution within a company’s manufacturing processes, particularly in chemical process industries. Frequently, we fail to consider that control systems themselves are industrial processes that consume energy and can emit significant pollutants…

Emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfur dioxide (SO2), VOCs, and mercury, as well as carbon dioxide (CO2), and hotter climate undermine public health, the environment, and the overall state economy. The worst air quality in the United States is in California, a state known for its efforts to raise environmental standards, cut greenhouse gas emissions,…