Environmental Policy Induced Input Substitution? The Case of Coking and Steam Coal

Ian Lange

No 200710, NCEE Working Paper Series from National Center for Environmental Economics, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Abstract: The Clean Air Act of 1990 initiated a tradable permit program for emissions of sulfur dioxide from coal-fired power plants. The effect of this enlightened policy on the coal industry was a large increase in consumption of low-sulfur bituminous and subbituminous coals. Low-sulfur bituminous coal is most attractive to coal-fired power plants as they have higher heat content and require less alteration to the boiler to burn as effectively the coal previously in use. However, low-sulfur bituminous coal is also the ideal coal for coking. The analysis presented here will attempt to determine whether the increased consumption of low-sulfur bituminous coal for electricity generation caused a decrease in the quality and/or quantity of coking coal consumption. Most evidence suggests that the market for coking coal was unaffected, even as the consumption of low-sulfur bituminous coal for electricity generation increased substantially. Implications of potential greenhouse gas regulation on this market are also discussed.

Keywords: 1990 Clean Air Act; coke; Input substitution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 18 pages
Date: 2007-12, Revised 2007-12
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.epa.gov/environmental-economics/workin ... titution-case-coking First version, 2007 (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nev:wpaper:wp200710

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NCEE Working Paper Series from National Center for Environmental Economics, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Cynthia Morgan ().