The Heterogeneous Impact of Coal Prices on the Location of Cleaner and Dirtier Steel Plants

Francois Cohen

No 65-2020, CIES Research Paper series from Centre for International Environmental Studies, The Graduate Institute

Abstract: Climate policy will predominantly affect industries that primarily rely on fossil fuels, such as steelmaking. Within these industries, exposure may be different by country according to the energy-intensity of national plants. We estimate the effect of coal prices on steel plant location worldwide and production preferences for BOF, a polluting technology, and EAF, a greener one. A 1% increase in national coal prices reduces BOF installed capacity by around 0.37%, while it has no statistically significant impact on EAF capacity. We simulate the implementation of a stringent European carbon market with no border adjustment and find a non-negligible shift in steel production outside Europe, with a concomitant impact on the technologies employed to produce steel. If applied worldwide, the same policy would primarily affect production in Asia, which relies on BOF and currently benefits from lower coal prices than those expected to emerge in the future.

Keywords: Steel industry; firm relocation; technological change; energy prices; carbon market; coal. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 61 pages
Date: 2020-12-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene and nep-env
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http://repec.graduateinstitute.ch/pdfs/ciesrp/CIES_RP_65.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The Heterogeneous Impact of Coal Prices on the Location of Cleaner and Dirtier Steel Plants (2022)
Journal Article: The Heterogeneous Impact of Coal Prices on the Location of Cleaner and Dirtier Steel Plants (2022)
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