A PRELIMINARY GIS COMPARISON OF MERCURY CONCENTRATIONS IN SAMPLES FROM IN-GROUND COAL AND SAMPLES OF FEEDSTOCK COAL

摘要

In-ground coal contains rock partings and inorganic and high-specific gravity material that are commonly, butnot always, removed during coal cleaning. As a result, it is difficult to determine the relationship betweenmercury concentrations of in-ground coal and the amount of mercury emitted when coal is combusted in electricgenerating units. However, mercury reduction can be observed when comparing means of mercuryconcentrations on a county basis for assessed coal beds and zones from the recently completed U.S. GeologicalSurvey’s Appalachian Basin coal resource assessment (Northern and Central Appalachian Basin Coal RegionsTeam, 2001) with analytical results of clean feedstock coal samples contained in the U.S. EnvironmentalProtection Agency’s Utility Air-Toxics coal database.