Proposed coal power plants and coal-to-liquids plants in the US: Which ones survive and why?

• Dataset: 145 US coal plants and 25 US coal-to-liquid plants projects in 2004–2013.
• We studied the variables influencing the viability of a coal plant project.
• We integrated standard datasets with Google data.
• Social awareness and voice factors appear as relevant as cost factors.
• Out-of-sample analysis and robustness checks confirm our findings.

The increase of oil and natural gas prices since the year 2000 stimulated the planning and construction of new coal-fired electricity generating plants and coal-to-liquids (CTL) plants in the US. However, many of these projects have been canceled or abandoned since 2007. Using a set of 145 proposed coal power plants and 25 CTL plants, the determinants that influence the decision to abandon a project or to proceed with it are examined using binary data models and 20 regressors. In the case of coal power plants, the number of searches performed on Google relating to coal power plants, the project duration and the prices of alternative fuels for electricity generation are found to be statistically significant at the 5% level. As for CTL plants, the political affiliation of the state governor is the only variable significant at the 5% level across several model specifications. An out-of-sample exercise confirms these findings. These results also hold with robustness checks considering alternative Google search keywords, the potential effects of the recession between 2008 and 2009 and the inclusion of the two dimensions of the Dynamic-Weighted Nominate (DWN) database.