Cost pressures drive flue gas treatment into new and fertile regions

Cheaper fuels are being increasingly used by power producers worldwide in an effort to cut costs, placing pressure on flue gas cleaning system suppliers to meet market demands of low investment costs, low operation costs, and use of low cost fuels with alternative technologies. The high ash and sulfur content of cheaper fuels creates demand for optimization of existing electrostatic precipitators; demand is also mounting for baghouse technologies. Emerging low investment technologies include seawater scrubbing with forced in situ oxidation, combined semi-dry circulating fluidized bed scrubbers with low pressure pulse jet filters, and wet ammonia processes.