Costs and Benefits of Installing Flue-Gas Desulfurization Units at Coal-Fired Power Plants in India

Coal-fired power plants, in addition to emitting greenhouse gases, are a major source of local pollution and health damages throughout the world. China, the United States, and other countries that rely on coal for electricity production regulate emissions from coal-fired power plants, primarily for health reasons. In the United States, the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments caused many power plants to switch to low-sulfur coal or to install flue-gas desulfurization units (FGD units, or scrubbers). Subsequent tightening of sulfur dioxide (SO) regulations has caused more plants to scrub their emissions. In 2010, power plants with FGD units accounted for 60 percent of the electricity generated from coal in the United States (Schmalensee and Stavins 2013). By 2013, 95 percent of China’s coal-fired generating capacity had been fitted with FGD units (Ministry of Environmental Protection 2014). India, which relies on coal to generate 76 percent of its electricity (CEA 2015), did not regulate SO emissions from coal-fired power plants until December 2015. That lack of regulation may have been due, in part, to the low sulfur content of Indian coal (Chikkatur and Sagar 2007). Indian coal is approximately 0.5 percent sulfur by weight, similar to Powder River Basin (PRB) coal in the United States (Lu and others 2013). However, the population exposed to SO emissions from power plants in India is much greater than that in the United States, as is the amount of coal burned to generate a kilowatt hour (kWh) of electricity. Recent studies suggest serious health effects associated with SO emissions from Indian power plants. Guttikunda and Jawahar (2014) estimate that Indian power plants caused more than 80,000 deaths in 2011; they attribute 30–40 percent of these deaths to SO. Cropper and others (2012) suggest that as many as 60 percent of the deaths associated with coal-fired power plants in India may be attributable to SO emissions rather than to directly emitted particulate matter or oxides of nitrogen (NOx). This chapter analyzes the health benefits and the costs of installing FGD units at each of the 72 coal-fired power plants in India, plants that in 2009 constituted 90 percent of coal-fired generating capacity. We estimate the health benefits of one FGD unit by estimating SO emissions from a plant without an FGD unit and then translating those emissions into changes in ambient air quality. This is accomplished using an Eulerian photochemical dispersion model (CAMx) that allows SO to form fine sulfate particles (smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter [PM]) in the atmosphere. The impacts of PM on premature mortality are estimated for ischemic heart disease, stroke, lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and acute lower respiratory infection (ALRI) using the integrated exposure response (IER) coefficients in Burnett and others (2014). We assume that a scrubber will reduce SO emissions by 90 percent. The annual reductions in premature mortality and associated life years lost resulting from use of scrubbers are combined with an estimate of annualized capital and operating costs to compute the cost per statistical life saved and cost per disability-adjusted life year (DALY) averted associated with each FGD unit. Reducing SO emissions from coal-fired power plants offers additional benefits that we do not quantify. These include improvements in visibility (which yield aesthetic and recreation benefits) and reduced acidic deposition. Acidic deposition can reduce soil quality (through nutrient leaching), impair timber growth, and harm freshwater ecosystems (USEPA 2011).