The world market for stack and ambient continuous monitoring plus periodic monitoring and other related services will rise to $2.2 billion in 2010, a 20 percent increase over the projected 2009 market, according to a report by the McIlvaine Company (www.mcilvainecompany.com). McIlvaine predicts the rapid expansion in CO2 measurement investment and increased activity for stack monitoring in Asia will be key drivers of demand.
Since the U.S. EPA (www.epa.gov) has now classified CO2 as an air pollutant, ambient, McIlvaine says periodic stack and continuous stack monitoring revenues will rise substantially. McIlvaine believes existing continuous emissions monitoring systems (CEMS) will by and large be the primary sources of measurement, thus limiting the hardware market. As such, McIlvaine predicts the revenue upswing will be supported by services including analysis and stack testing.
McIlvaine predicts the biggest market increase will be in ambient measurement, as the models predicting various calamities need to be supported by actual periodic or continuous measurement at various key locations in the water, ice, air, etc.
The future of air pollution monitoring is tied closely to the energy sources, according to McIlvaine. If coal use were to be reduced, McIlvaine says the market for CEMS would be significantly impacted. However, McIlvaine says the use of coal is likely to increase, not decrease, with world coal-fired power plant capacity slated to grow from 1,759,000 MW in 2010 to 2,384,000 MW in 2020.
Likewise, McIlvaine says there is an historic change taking place in the Middle East where huge investments in petrochemical plants are being made. This is expected to result in very substantial markets both for air pollution CEMS and for process analyzers for sulfur and other acid gases.
In 2007 most of the power plants in the U.S. ordered Mercury CEMS. With the present vacature of the Clean Air Mercury Rule (CAMR), most of these systems are not being operated. However, some states have rules that do require operation. As such, McIlvaine predicts there will ultimately be more than 1,000 CEMS in operation, with a capital cost of over $300 million. With an average operating cost of $100,000 per year, the monitoring industry in the United States figures to enjoy at least part of this $100 million operating and maintenance market.
Waste-to-energy is the second largest market after power, according to McIlvaine. This market will continue to grow throughout the world. The United States is well behind Europe and Asia in construction of waste-to-energy plants. However, this situation is changing as the value of energy production from this source is realized.
The stack CEMS market in China is also slated for rapid growth. The CEMS market in China will be the largest in the world after 2011. Within China, coal-fired boilers represent the biggest CEMS potential. SEPA (the Chinese equivalent of EPA) is cracking down on SO2 and NOx emissions from new and existing power plants. The proposed steps include continuous reporting of emissions, which will provide a means for enforcement.
