Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-12T19:42:26.241Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Spatial distribution of coal-fired power plants in China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 May 2018

Lunyu Xie
Affiliation:
School of Economics, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China
Ying Huang
Affiliation:
School of Economics, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China
Ping Qin*
Affiliation:
School of Economics, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

Abstract

Coal has fueled China's rapid growth in recent decades, but it also severely pollutes the air and causes many health issues. The magnitude of the health damage caused by air pollution depends on the location of emission sources. In this paper, we look into the spatial distribution of coal-fired power plants, which are the major emission sources in China, and investigate the determining factors behind the distribution. We find that the driving factors are economic development and expansion of electricity grid coverage; the latter factor plays a key role in provinces that are less developed but have abundant coal resources. This suggests a way to reduce health damages caused by air pollution without harming the economy: attracting coal-fired plants to less populated areas by developing trans-province electricity trade and grid coverage.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Becker, R and Henderson, V (2000) Effects of air quality regulations on polluting industries. Journal of Political Economy 108(2), 379421.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bowen, HP, Leamer, EE and Sveikauskas, LA (1987) Multicounty, multifactor tests of the factor abundance theory. The American Economic Review 77(5), 791809.Google Scholar
BP Global and BP Worldwide (2011) BP Energy Outlook 2030. London, UK.Google Scholar
Chay, KY and Greenstone, M (2003) The impact of air pollution on infant mortality: evidence from geographical variation in pollution shocks induced by a recession. Quarterly Journal of Economics 118(3), 11211167.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chen, Y, Ebenstein, A, Greenstone, M and Li, H (2013) Evidence on the impact of sustained exposure to air pollution on life expectancy from China's huai river policy. PNAS 110(32), 1293612941.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
China Statistics Press (2013) China Energy Statistical Yearbook 2013. Beijing, China.Google Scholar
Coneus, K and Spiess, CK (2012) Pollution exposure and child health: evidence for infants and toddlers in Germany. Journal of Health Economics 31(1), 180196.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crafts, N and Mulatu, A (2005) What explains the location of industry in britain, 1871–1931? Journal of Economic Geography 5, 499518.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Currie, J and Neidell, M (2005) Air pollution and infant health: what can we learn from california's recent experience? Quarterly Journal of Economics 120(3), 10031030.Google Scholar
Dasgupta, S, Laplante, B, Mamingi, N and Wang, H (2001) Inspections, pollution prices, and environmental performance: evidence from China. Ecological Economics 36(3), 487498.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davis, DR, Weinstein, DE, Bradford, SC and Shimpo, K (1997) Using international and Japanese regional data to determine when the factor abundance theory of trade works. The American Economic Review 87(3), 421446.Google Scholar
Ebenstein, A, Fan, M, Greenstone, M, He, G and Zhou, M (2017) New evidence on the impact of sustained exposure to air pollution on life expectancy from China's huai river policy. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 114(39), 1038410389.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ellison, G and Glaeser, EL (1999) The geographic concentration of industry: does natural advantage explain agglomeration? The American Economic Review 89(2), 311316.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fan, G, Wang, X and Zhu, H (2011) Marketization Index in China: 2011 Annual Report on the Provincial Marketization Process. Beijing, China: Economic Science Press.Google Scholar
Fujita, M (1988) A monopolistic competition model of spatial agglomeration: differentiated product approach. Regional Science and Urban Economics 18(1), 87124.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gerlagh, R and Mathys, NA (2011) Energy abundance, trade and industry location. FEEM Working Paper No. 3.2011.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greco, SL, Wilson, AM, Spengler, JD and Levy, JI (2007) Spatial patterns of mobile source particulate matter emissions-to-exposure relationships across the United States. Atmospheric Environment 41(5), 10111025.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greenstone, M (2002) The impacts of environmental regulations on industrial activity: evidence from the 1970 and 1977 clean Air Act amendments and the census of manufactures. Journal of Political Economy 110(6), 11751219.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gutberlet, T (2012) Cheap Coal, Marke t Access, and Industry Location in Germany 1846 to 1882. University of Arizona, Working Paper. Available at https://intranet.weatherhead.case.edu/document-upload/docs/1027.pdf.Google Scholar
He, J, Yan, L, Lei, Y and Wang, X (2015) Emission characteristics of particulate matter from coal-fired power plants in China. Research of Environmental Sciences 28, 862868.Google Scholar
Ho, MS and Nielsen, CP (2007) Clearing the Air: The Health and Economic Damages of Air Pollution in China. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
International Energy Agency (2012) Carbon-Dioxide Emissions from Fuel Combustion Highlights. Available at http://www.iea.org.Google Scholar
International Energy Agency (2014) World Energy Balances. World Energy Statistics and Balances online data. Available at http://www.iea.org.Google Scholar
Jaffe, AB, Peterson, SR, Portney, PR and Stavins, RN (1995) Environmental regulation and the competitiveness of US manufacturing: what does the evidence tell us? Journal of Economic Literature 33, 132163.Google Scholar
Jeppesen, T, List, JA and Folmer, H (2002) Environmental regulations and new plant location decisions: evidence from a meta-analysis. Journal of Regional Science 42(1), 1949.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kanbur, R and Zhang, X (2005) Fifty years of regional inequality in China: a journey through central planning, reform, and openness. Review of Development Economics 9(1), 87106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krugman, P (1991) Increasing returns and economic geography. National Bureau of Economic Research working paper no. w3275.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
List, JA and McHone, WW (2000) Measuring the effects of air quality regulations on “dirty” firm births: evidence from the neo-andmature-regulatory periods. Papers in Regional Science 79(2), 177190.Google Scholar
Lopez, MT, Zuk, M, Garibay, V, Tzintzun, G, Iniestra, R and Fernandez, A (2005) Health impacts from power plant emissions in Mexico. Atmospheric Environment 39(7), 11991209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Luechinger, S (2014) Air pollution and infant mortality: a natural experiment from power plant desulfurization. Journal of Health Economics 37, 219231.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Michielsen, TO (2013) The distribution of energy-intensive sectors in the USA. Journal of Economic Geography 13(5), 871888.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Midelfart-Knarvik, KH, Overman, HG, Redding, SJ and Venables, AJ (2000) The Location of European Industry. Economic Papers No. 142, European Commission, D-G for Economic and Financial Affairs, Brussels.Google Scholar
Neidell, MJ (2004) Air pollution, health, and socio-economic status: the effect of outdoor air quality on childhood asthma. Journal of Health Economics 23(6), 12091236.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Romalis, J (2004) Factor proportions and the structure of commodity trade. The American Economic Review 94(1), 6797.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sueyoshi, T and Goto, M (2015) Environmental assessment on coal-fired power plants in U.S. North-east region by DEA non-radial measurement. Energy Economics 50, 125139.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tanaka, S (2015) Environmental regulations on air pollution in China and their impact on infant mortality. Journal of Health Economics 42, 90103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, MS (2005) Unbundling the pollution haven hypothesis. Advances in Economic Analysis and Policy 3(2): 128.Google Scholar
Wen, M (2004) Relocation and agglomeration of Chinese industry. Journal of Development Economics 73(1), 329347.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
World Bank (1997) Clear Water, Blue Skies: China's Environment in the New Century. Washington, DC: World Bank.Google Scholar
Zhang, W, Zhang, L and Zhang, K (2010) The competition of environmental regulation enforcement in provinces of China – an analysis based on the spatial durbin fixed effect model. Management World 12, 3444 (in Chinese).Google Scholar
Zhou, Y, Levy, JI, Evans, JS and Hammitt, JK (2006) The influence of geographic location on population exposure to emissions from power plants throughout China. Environment International 32(3), 365373.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Supplementary material: PDF

Xie et al. supplementary material

Online Appendix

Download Xie et al. supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 562.5 KB