Page 109 - New Trends In Coal Conversion

72 New Trends in Coal Conversion

Global Mercury Partnershipduniting governments and stakeholders around the world
was established to work together. Its activity has been divided into five partnership
areas, one of them focused on coal combustion. In February 2009, the Governing
Council of the UNEP agreed on Decision 23/9, defining the need to develop a global
legally binding instrument on mercury. The Minamata Convention was completed in
February 2014. The final text requires that signatory parties take measures to control
and, where feasible, reduce emissions. New plants will have to apply BAT/BEP and
BAT/BEP as an option, alongside emission limit values (ELVs), reduction targets,
multipollutant strategies, or “alternative measures,” for existing sources. The definition
of BAT within the convention is to be determined by the conference of the parties, and
geographical, technical, and economic considerations are to be taken into account. And
so, at this stage, it is up to each signatory country to determine how the convention will
be applied to sources within their jurisdiction.

3.4.2 Regional and national legislation: European Union
At a regional level, the European Union (EU) and North America arguably have the
most tedious emission legislation. In November 2005, the European Commission
(EC) launched a review of European legislation on industrial emissions. This led to
the commission proposing an Industrial Emissions Directive (IED) on December
21, 2007, which was ratified by the European Council on November 8, 2010 and
came into force on January 6, 2011. The IED takes an integrated approach to industrial
emissions. The IED (2010/75/EU- IED), which came into force for coal-fired power
plants in 2016, repealed and replaced the Directive 2008/1/EC on integrated pollution
prevention and control (IPPC), the Directive 2000/76/EC on waste incineration ,and
the Directive 2001/80/EC on large combustion plants (LCPs). Its main purpose is to
reduce harmful industrial emissions, in particular through better application of BAT,
thereby benefiting both citizens’ health and the environment. Chapter III of Directive
2010/75/EU contains special provisions for combustion plants. It applies to combus-
tion plants with a total rated thermal input, which is equal to or greater than
50 MW, irrespective of the type of fuel used. The new ELVs for LCPs are generally
more stringent than in previous directives. There is a degree of flexibility (transitional
national plan and limited lifetime derogation) for existing installations.
Although this directive does not set an ELV for TE from coal-fired utilities, it does
introduce a requirement for annual monitoring of mercury emissions. In addition, it
will further enhance cobenefits of “traditional” pollutant abatement measures on the
reduction of mercury. Studies carried out in the EU and elsewhere have consistently
shown that the installation of control technologies for particulates SO 2 and NO x on
coal-fired power plants can effectively reduce mercury emissions. For most plants
and coals, the combination of particulate controls and wet flue gas desulfurization
(WFGD) systems will mean at least 70% mercury reduction (Sloss, 2002). If selective
catalytic reduction (SCR) is also included, as will be the case at many EU plants, mer-
cury capture can be up to and over 90%.
In the United States, the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 identified 11 TEs and
their compounds commonly found in coal as potentially “hazardous air pollutants”