Ranking of Air Force Heating Plants Relative to the Economic Benefit of Coal Utilization.

摘要

The Defense appropriations Act of 1986 requires the Department of Defense to use an additional 1.6 million tons of coal per year at their US facilities by 1995. It also states that the most economical fuel should be used at each facility. To comply with this act, the United States Air Force requested Oak Ridge National Laboratory to evaluate the feasibility and economics of using coal at Air Force heating plants that currently burn natural gas and/or oil. A life-cycle cost analysis of 16 heating plants was performed, and the results were used to rank the facilities from best to worst according to their potential for economical utilization of coal. As many as 12 different coal combustion technologies were analyzed at each Air Force site. Also, two years of financing and three levels of fuel escalation were examined in the analysis for a total of six economic scenarios. The heating plants at Arnold, Kelly, Grand Forks, Minot, Robins, Plattsburgh, and McGuire Air Force bases were consistently identified as the top seven facilities for coal conversion, but the actual amount of cost savings will be strongly dependent on future fuel escalation rates. 10 refs., 3 figs., 22 tabs.