Excel Assignment: What and Where Decisions The Big U operates a coal-fired power plant that burns 4,300 tons of coal per year. Coals from four regions of the country can be burned in the plant. The amount of pollution produced depends on the amount of each type of coal burned. The details are in the table below, where the pounds of the various pollutants that are in each ton of coal that is burned are specified for each type of coal. Coal source (pounds of pollution/ton of coal burned) Illinois Kentucky Pennsylvania Wyoming Fly ash 2.6 1.3 1.7 0.9 Sulfur 1.2 0.9 0.8 0.7 Nitrogen oxide 0.8 0.3 0.6 0.4 Cost ($/ton) 37 33 31 44 By federal law, the plant can emit at most 9,000, 6,000, and 2,500 pounds per year of fly ash, sulfur, and nitrogen oxide, respectively. Also, the state legislature requires that at least half of the coal burned come from Illinois.
1. In worksheet 2 of your excel file, formulate your excel model and solve it with Solver. Please provide necessary comments and remarks to make your excel model readable and understandable. (See my excel file for Captain Wise’s Problem as an example)
Hint: this problem is a simpler version of Captain Wise example. Here the decision is only one dimensional: how many tons of coal to buy from each state.