The Cost of Stack Gas Cleaning in New York State

Abstract

A cost estimating methodology has been applied to an emission point inventory to estimate the capital and operating costs of stack gas cleaning in the manufacturing sector of New York State. The study represents the first major attempt to estimate control costs on a source by source basis for a large region. The various control cost components are presented for each of the twenty manufacturing industry groups and the usefulness of the estimates for an abatement planning model is outlined.

In recent years a number of heroic efforts have been made to estimate the cost of air pollution abatement on a national or regional basis. Unfortunately, these studies have relied almost entirely upon emission factors, cost engineering functions, pilot plant operations, and average or ideal firms, because of the paucity of primary data.^1-6

In the estimates of capital and operating costs presented below, an attempt has been made to improve on previous research by making extensive use of primary data. The data were taken from an emission inventory of over 20,000 sources of air contamination in New York State. A cost estimating methodology was applied to engineering parameters of existing control operations on a source by source basis. The results have been aggregated to the two-digit SIC level.