TY - JOUR
T1 - Exploring links between innovation and diffusion
T2 - Adoption of NOX control technologies at US coal-fired power plants
AU - Popp, David
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgments The author thanks Wayne Gray, Nat Keohane, Erin Mansur, Jan Ondrich, Geoffrey Roth-well, two anonymous referees and seminar participants at Yale University, the National Bureau of Economic Research Environmental Economics Program, the University of Ottawa, the Association for Policy Analysis and Management, the University of California Energy Institute, the University of Maryland, the University of Calgary, and the Technological Change and the Environment Workshop at Dartmouth College for helpful comments. Neelaskhi Medhi, Jacob Brower and Yonghong Wu provided excellent research assistance. Thanks also to Kelly Bogart for her editorial assistance when preparing this manuscript. Financial support provided by DOE grant DE-FG02-ER63467.
PY - 2010/3
Y1 - 2010/3
N2 - While many studies have looked at innovation and adoption of technologies separately, the two processes are linked. Advances (and expected advances) in a single technology should affect both its adoption rate and the adoption of alternative technologies. This paper combines plant-level data on US coal-fired electric power plants with patent data pertaining to NOX pollution control techniques to study this link. As in other studies of environmental technologies, the effect of other explanatory variables is dominated by the effect of environmental regulations, demonstrating that the mere presence of environmental technologies is not enough to encourage its usage. Nonetheless, I do find that technological advances are important for the adoption of existing combustion modification technologies. However, these advances are less important for the adoption of newer post-combustion control techniques, which are adopted only when needed to comply with the strictest emission limits.
AB - While many studies have looked at innovation and adoption of technologies separately, the two processes are linked. Advances (and expected advances) in a single technology should affect both its adoption rate and the adoption of alternative technologies. This paper combines plant-level data on US coal-fired electric power plants with patent data pertaining to NOX pollution control techniques to study this link. As in other studies of environmental technologies, the effect of other explanatory variables is dominated by the effect of environmental regulations, demonstrating that the mere presence of environmental technologies is not enough to encourage its usage. Nonetheless, I do find that technological advances are important for the adoption of existing combustion modification technologies. However, these advances are less important for the adoption of newer post-combustion control techniques, which are adopted only when needed to comply with the strictest emission limits.
KW - Air pollution
KW - Environmental policy
KW - Expectations
KW - Technology transfer
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=77950689418&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=77950689418&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s10640-009-9317-1
DO - 10.1007/s10640-009-9317-1
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:77950689418
SN - 0924-6460
VL - 45
SP - 319
EP - 352
JO - Environmental and Resource Economics
JF - Environmental and Resource Economics
IS - 3
ER -