Environmental and Economic Management of Coke Plants

Abstract

Coke production has numerous serious environmental impacts (atmospheric emissions of pollutants, wastewater emissions, solid-waste storage). To reduce such impacts, the local environmental and economic system and its basic components must be studied in order to improve plant management. In the present work, existing approaches to determining the operational features of industrial enterprises as local environmental and economic systems are analyzed; their modification is considered. This analysis provides the basis for a set of correlated environmental and economic indices reflecting the specifics of a coke plant with a narrow production program (specifically, PAO Koks). It is particularly important to understand the relationship between the following pairs: the current environmental protection costs and the risk level; the current environmental protection costs and fees for environmental damage; the current environmental protection costs and the compensation factor for the economic harm; and the utilization of production resources and the risk level. It is evident that the coke plant has pursued different environmental policies at different times: from 2004 to 2010; and from 2010 to 2016. By the analysis of theoretical developments in Russia and elsewhere and the analysis of graphs of actual plant data, means of improving the management of the coke plant as a local environmental and economic system are identified. From this perspective, it is important to make better use of current expenditures on environmental protection by redistributing the total among specific budget items and by devising a management algorithm for the wastes generated at the plant such that they may be converted to a commercial product, with decrease in waste-storage fees. This research is of practical interest for large industrial enterprises with numerous negative environmental impacts, so as to identify effective environmental management strategies.