ON THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION OF THE BEST AVAILABLE ENVIRONMENTAL TECHNOLOGIES

Abstract

The paper contains general information on the environmental impact assessment of the projects in Russia in compliance with the relevant federal legislation taking into account changed and additions. The paper describes the main types of environmental expertise applied in Russia, and the main objects of compulsory state ecological expertise in power engineering of the federal level including first of all gas, oil and coal-fired power plants. We have analyzed the current situation related to the tightening of the Russian environmental legislation and the corresponding impact of scientific and technical environmental expertise on the BAT implementation. The paper lists the chief reasons for a lack of the independent scientific environmental assessment of energy projects. At the same time, we note that a special role should be assigned to higher educational institutions and research institutes with scientific staff being professionals in various energy issues. Based on 20 years’ experience of the Centre for Science and Education “Ecology of Power Engineering” of the Moscow Power Engineering Institute, we have considered the issue of ecological training of personnel from energy holding and companies. The authors' views on the expertise on management of wastes (coal ash) from thermal and electric energy production are considered, taking into account the legal and normative-technical documents. The paper presents a block diagram of the prospective coal ash handling system of thermal power plants and the modernized structural scheme of the prospective ash and slag removal system of TPPs. The block diagram provides the possibility of maximum collection and shipment of dry ash as well as environmentally acceptable ways of storing the unclaimed dry ash. The paper describes the examples of the implementation of the ash handling modernization projects at State District Power Plants with different levels of expertise compliance with the current trends in the development of ash handling systems using the best available technologies in the power engineering.