Q: In 1996, the Virginia General Assembly passed a law providing tax credits to Virginia utilities for using coal mined in Virginia. In 2006, that law was renewed and expanded to provide a $3 per ton credit. Is there evidence that this law has increased consumption of Virginia coal by powerplants in the state? Is there evidence that it has increased coal production in Virginia?
Using the tools on Open Source Coal, it’s easy to see that the tax credit appears to have expanded the consumption of Virginia Coal by power plants in the state. In the graph below, note the dramatic increases in both 1996 and 2006:
Click image to view an interactive chart, or click here to see how the query was performed using the Power Plant Datafinder on Open Source Coal.
While consumption of Virginia coal by power plants in the state appears to have increased by at least a few million tons as a result of the law, there does not appear to have been a concommitant increase in coal production, as evidenced by this graph of total Virginia coal production between 1983 and 2007:
Click image to view an interactive chart, or click here to see how the query was performed using the Coal Production Datafinder on Open Source Coal.
