The abatement cost function defined by (9) provides means to compute the
marginal cost of SPM abatement over a range of SPM concentration for pollution
control devices currently in use at the steel plant. The marginal cost is the change in
total cost at the margin arising from removing any additional unit of pollutant. In brief,
the change in AC at the margin arising from a unit change in Q(SPMbt - SPMαt) is
defined as marginal cost (MC).
MC =
dAC
dR
where, R = Q (SPMbt - SPMat)
4. Steel Plants: Sources of and Techniques for SPM Abatement
The production of steel in India is dominated by a number of large integrated
iron and steel plants in the public sector under the control of the Steel Authority of
India Limited (SAIL). There are five main production stages in an integrated steel
plant: coke oven batteries; blast furnace; steel melting shop (SMS); casting of steel and
rolling mills.
An integrated steel plant generates environmental pollution at each stage of the
production process. SPM is an important air pollutant released from steel plants in
India. The main sources of SPM emissions in a steel plant are: coke ovens, sinter
plants, power plants, refractories, blast furnace, and SMS. Steel plants in India have
mainly been using end of the pipe control equipment for controlling air pollution
(Kakkar, 1998). Equipment for air pollution abatement includes various types of water
scrubbers, cyclones, bag filters and electronic precipitators (ESPs). Minimal national
standards (MINAS) have been specified for various pollutants which apply to each