Positive Spillovers from Infrastructure Investment: How Pipeline Expansions Encourage Fuel Switching

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Scott, Jonathan B.
• 署名单位: University of Texas System; University of Texas Dallas
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF ECONOMICS AND STATISTICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0034-6535
• DOI: 10.1162/rest_a_01137
• 发表日期: 2023-11
• 页码: 1448-1464
• 关键词: air-pollution; gas; prices; HEALTH; IMPACT

摘要

This paper studies the role of the U.S. pipeline infrastructure in the country's transition from coal to natural gas energy. I leverage the Environmental Protection Agency's Mercury and Air Toxics Standards as a plausibly exogenous intervention, which encouraged many coal plants to convert to natural gas. Combining this quasi-experimental variation with a plant's preexisting proximity to the pipeline network, I isolate implied pipeline connection costs within a dynamic discrete choice model of plant conversions. Key model results indicate that infrastructure-related costs prevent $9 billion in emissions reductions from taking place, suggesting a $2.4 million per mile external benefit of pipeline expansions.