Journal of Cleaner Production 286 (2021) 125397

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Journal of Cleaner Production

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Assessment and offset of the adverse effects induced by PM2.5 from

coal-fired power plants in China
Chengyu He a, Guohe Huang b, *, Lirong Liu c, Yongping Li b, Mengyu Zhai d, Rong Cao a
a
State Key Joint Laboratory of Environmental Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China
b
Center for Energy, Environment and Ecology Research, UR-BNU, School of Environment, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China
c
Institute for Energy, Environment and Sustainable Communities, University of Regina, Regina, Saskatchewan, S4S 0A2, Canada
d
Sino-Canada Resources and Environmental Research Academy, North China Electric Power University, Beijing, 102206, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Coal-fired power plants are major sources of air pollution in China. Primary particulate matter, sulfur
Received 11 March 2020 dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOX) emitted from coal-fired power plants formed a large amount of
Received in revised form PM2.5 and further imposed heavy burdens on human health and socio-economy. Thus, there is a growing
9 November 2020
need to assess such adverse effects and explore effective approaches to offset them. This study aims to
Accepted 2 December 2020
Available online 3 December 2020
advance an integral framework, covering health impact assessment, economic loss estimation and
adverse effects offset, to understand and mitigate the negative effects induced by PM2.5 from coal-fired
Handling editor: Bin Chen power plants in China. In detail, an emission-based model recommended by United Nations Environment
Program (UNEP) was adopted to link the emissions of coal-fired power plants with premature mortality
Keywords: cases (PMC). Then, the economic losses triggered by PMC (including the integral loss, the macro loss and
Premature mortality cases the direct loss) were assessed from multiple perspectives. After that, two approaches, respectively aiming
Economic loss to identify the key coal-fired power plants and optimize the economic structure, were developed to offset
Offset approaches the economic losses. We found that 22,231 premature mortality cases occurred in China during 2012 due
Fine particulate matter
to PM2.5 from coal-fired power plants (accounting for 0.02‰ of the national population). The corre-
sponding integral loss amounted to CNY 17 billion and was equivalent with 0.03‰ of China’s GDP in
2012. Emission abatement against key coal-fired power plants had potential to decrease the integral loss
by 23.18%. Increasing the self-input coefficient of the chemical industry in Shandong by 0.018% could
offset the integral loss. At provincial level, Jiangsu payed the greatest cost in health and economy, and
played the vital role in cross-provincial loss. The PMC occurred in Liaoning entailed great economic losses
of other provinces, while the total output of Beijing was sensitive to the PMC occurred in other provinces.
These results could provide new insights for the rational policy development to ensure the long-term
social welfare.
© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction 2012). PM2.5 exposure triggers five adverse health impacts in

China had some of the highest concentrations of PM2.5 in the
world (Zhang et al., 2017). In 2010, the population-weighted average
concentration of PM2.5 in China was 59 mg m
3, which was 1.69 times
the national standard (i.e., 35 mg m
3).According to the Global
Burden of Disease Study (GBD), PM2.5 (i.e., fine particulate matter
with an aerodynamic diameter smaller than 2.5 mm) has been
identified as a leading environmental risk factor contributing to the
global human disease burden(Forouzanfar et al., 2015; Lim et al.,
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: huang@iseis.org (G. Huang).
humans (i.e., ischemic heart disease (IHD); cerebrovascular disease
(stroke); chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD); lung cancer
(LC); and lower respiratory infections among the young) and further
results in a lot of premature mortality cases (PMC) (Weidema and
Fantke, 2018).
Coal-fired power plants are the major power sources and air
pollution sources of China (Muller et al., 2011). During 2010, PM2.5,
SO2 and NOx emitted from coal-fired power plants accounted for
7.3%, 28.4% and 32.4% of the corresponding total emissions in China,
according to Global Power Emissions Database(Tong et al., 2018).
Considering China’s severe air pollution problem and the signifi-
cant contribution of coal-fired power plants on it, there is a growing

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.125397
0959-6526/© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
C. He, G. Huang, L. Liu et al.
need to assess the health impacts and the corresponding economic
losses induced by PM2.5 from coal-fired power plants in China for
guiding the relevant policy development to ensure China’s long-
term social welfare.
Regarding the PM2.5-induced health impacts, health assessment
models were usually adopted in previous studies. In general, health
assessment models could be classified into two categories: the
concentration-based models and the emission-based models.
Among the concentration-based models, the integrated exposure-
response (IER) model was frequently used and well researched(-
Brauer et al., 2016; Burnett et al., 2014). For example, Zhang et al.,
studied the contributions of atmospheric transport and interna-
tional trade to the global PM2.5-induced health impacts, where IER
was adopted to link the PM2.5 concentration with the relevant
PMC(Zhang et al., 2017). Zhao et al., revealed the effects of con-
sumption pattern on the emission of PM2.5, and estimated the
health impacts of PM2.5 through IER(Zhao et al., 2019). Because the
validation with field measurements is infeasible for the marginal
PM2.5 concentration variation and few models are able to capture
the necessary spatiotemporal domains with adequate sophisticat-
ion, the emission-based model also is very general(Levy et al.,
2003). Fantke et al., developed an emission-based model to pro-
vide the global guidance for assessing the adverse health effects
from PM2.5 exposure(Fantke et al., 2015). Adopting this model, the
PM2.5-induced adverse health effects in association with global
consumption(Liang et al., 2018), global coal-fired power gen-
eration(Oberschelp et al., 2019) and sugarcane production in Bra-
zil(Du et al., 2018) were estimated.
As for the economic loss estimation, the willingness to pay
method and the human capital method were commonly adopted.
For the willingness to pay method, the value of a statistical life (VSL)
is a common indicator. VSL measures the breakeven point at which
the public are willing to pay to avoid small incremental statistical
risks of death(Wang and He, 2010). Previous studies estimated that
VSL in different regions of China ranged from CNY 0.67 to 2.71
million(Gao et al., 2015; Liu, 2012). Muller et al., integrated VSL into
an integral assessment model to monetized the air pollution
external costs for the industries in the United States. It was found
that coal-fired power generation resulted in the highest external
costs(Muller et al., 2011).VSL was adopted by Cai et al., to estimate
the health benefits brought by China’s nationally determined
contribution (NDC), where NDC is a document which provides
China’s intention to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions for
addressing climate change. They discovered that the overall health
benefits in 2050 would be 3e9 times the implementation costs of
the NDC(Cai et al., 2018). With regard to the human capital method,
Yang et al., adopted the method to estimate the economic loss of 28
cities in China due to excessive PM2.5 concentration. They found
that the loss was at CNY 16.46 billion(Yang et al., 2019).
However, some studies argued that assessing the economic loss
from the direct perspective is insufficient(Okuyama and Chang,
2004). Meanwhile, ignoring the hidden economic disruption in
complex systems may distort the decision-making and result in
misleading policies(Hallegatte, 2008). A lot of studies thus inte-
grated input-output model into the disaster loss assessment, pur-
suing to reveal the potential economic losses from a relatively
comprehensive perspective(Barker and Rocco, 2011; Dietzenbacher
and Miller, 2015; Kasivisvanathan et al., 2013). Input-output model
is a macroeconomic model proposed by Leontief(Zhang et al., 2018).
In this model, a macroeconomy is classified into various sectors by
products and regions. It could not only capture the sectorial and
regional interdependencies but also trace the indirect effects along
the production supply chain(Miller and Blair, 2009). Beginning with
the PM2.5-induced labor time reduction, Xia et al., adopted the
multiregional input-output model (MRIO) to estimate the decrease
2
Journal of Cleaner Production 286 (2021) 125397
of the national total output across 30 Chinese provinces in 2007(Xia
et al., 2016) and in 2012(Xia et al., 2018).
Except the indirect loss resulted from the sectorial and regional
connectedness, the persistent effect of PMC on economy is worth to
note. In other words, when the death of a person prematurely
occurred in a certain year due to PM2.5, its impacts would not only
ripple through the interregional supply chains but also last for
decades. Because of the immanent preference for short-term ben-
efits, people always postpone the present potential risks to the later
periods and hope to handle such problems through temporary
fixes(Nam et al., 2013). Thus, estimating the economic loss form the
long-term perspective could reveal the staggering hidden eco-
nomic loss and ensure the farsighted behaviour(Wang et al., 2019).
Although the adverse effects of PM2.5 on human health and
economy were well examined from various perspectives, how to
efficiently offset such adverse effects was barely discussed. The
phase-in of advanced fuel-gas treatment technology and the tran-
sition of energy system could abate the emission of CPP and further
decrease the adverse impacts of PM2.5 from CPP. However,
considering the huge inertia of energy system, such measures may
fail to fill the gap left by the electricity demand increase(Michael
et al., 2014). Thus, it is necessary to develop some supplementary
offset approaches to ensure the social welfare.
The potential contributions of this study are threefold. Firstly,
more insights would be provided for understanding the adverse
effects that coal-fired power imposes on the social welfare. Sec-
ondly, the indirect effects of the sectorial connectedness and the
persistent effects of premature mortalities would be simulta-
neously integrated into the economic loss estimation. Thirdly, two
offset approaches would be developed for efficient economic loss
offset.
The rest of this paper is structured as follows: Section 2 states
the development of the integral framework and the data sources;
Section 3 elaborates on the empirical results of the PM2.5 originated
from CPP during 2012 in China; Section 4 and Section 5 discuss the
uncertainties and the policy implications of the empirical results;
Section 6 draws the conclusions.
2. Methods
Beginning with the emission inventories of China’s CPP in 2012,
this study adopts a method recommended by the United Nations
Environment Program-Society for Environmental Toxicology and
Chemistry (UNEP-SETAC) to link the outdoor PM2.5 originated from
CPP (i.e., CPP- PM2.5) with PMC(Jolliet et al., 2018). Based on the
provincial PMC, the corresponding economic losses are estimated
from three perspectives. Then, two approaches are developed to
offset such economic losses. The first approach aims to identify the
key CPP through cluster analysis and the second approach aims to
adjust the economic structure based on the proposed coefficient-
output elasticity (COE). The integral framework developed in this
study is illustrated in Fig. 1.
2.1. Health impact assessment
In this study, PMC is adopted to reveal the health impact of PM2.5
originated from CPP. An emission-based method recommended by
UNEP-SETAC is adopted to link PM2.5 with PMC (S1.1) (Jolliet et al.,
2018; Levy et al., 2003). The method assumes that (i) there is a no-
threshold dose-response relationship between PM2.5 intake and
PMC; (ii) all PM2.5 are equally toxic without regard to their sources
and chemical compositions(Fantke et al., 2015; Jolliet et al., 2018).
Three sources of PM2.5 (i.e., SO2, NOX and primary particulate
matters) are considered. Primary particulate matters (PPM) are the
major sources of primary PM2.5. SO2 and NOx are important sources
C. He, G. Huang, L. Liu et al.
Fig. 1. The developed integral framework.
of the precursor substances of secondary PM2.5(Lelieveld et al.,
2015). The organic secondary PM2.5 is not considered in this
study, because volatile organic compounds (VOC) are not the main
sources of secondary CPP-PM2.5 and the corresponding intake
fraction estimates are deficient.
Hereinafter, CPP-PM2.5(SO2) and CPP-PM2.5(NOX) respectively
refer to the secondary PM2.5 formed by SO2 and NOX from CPP; CPP-
PM2.5(PPM) indicates the primary PM2.5 originated from the pri-
mary particulate matters from CPP; CPP-PM2.5, the integration of
CPP- PM2.5(SO2), CPP- PM2.5(NOX) and CPP- PM2.5(PPM), means the
PM2.5 related to the emissions from CPP. PMC which is attributable
to the emission of pollutant i from CPP k in province s could be
depicted by Eq. (1) and the PMC occurred in province s due to CPP-
PM2.5 could be calculated by Eq. (2):
PMCski ¼ mski  IFski  ERF (1)
X
3 X
n
PMCs ¼ PMCki (2)
i k
where mki [unit: kgemitted =year ] is the emission amount of
pollutant i (i.e., SO2, NOX and PPM) from CPP k in province s;
3
Journal of Cleaner Production 286 (2021) 125397
IFski [unit: kginhaled =kgemitted ] is the intake fraction of pollutant i
emitted by CPP s in province s (S1.1);
ERF[unit: PMC=kginhaled ] is the exposure-response factor, which
could link PM2.5 intake to PMC(Apte et al., 2012; Burnett et al.,
2014) (S1.1);
PMCs is the premature mortality cases occurred in province s.
2.2. Economic losses estimation
2.2.1. Direct loss and macro loss
The economic losses in this study are estimated from the
demand-side. The direct loss is defined as the national consump-
tion degradation due to PMC. To estimate the direct loss, PMC is
divided into two categories (i.e., urban PMC and rural PMC) ac-
cording to the locations of CPP. Then, PMC inventory at city level are
further compiled. The consumption abilities of the rural population
are assumed equal at the provincial level, while those of the urban
dewellers are differentiated by the residential consumptions at city
level. The differences in age and gender are not considered, due to
lack of reliable data. Based on above discussions, direct losses (DL)
triggered by the PMC occurred in province s could be estimated
through Eq. (3):
C. He, G. Huang, L. Liu et al. Journal of Cleaner Production 286 (2021) 125397

2.3. Adverse effects offset

XPMC s
ui PMC s
r s
r
s
DL ¼ s
ui
f s
ui þ f (3) 2.3.1. Key CPP identification
i
POP POP s
r
Because the integral loss is more comprehensive than the other
two, the offset approaches would focus on the integral loss offset.
where s, u and r are the provincial, urban and rural sets,
Overall, adverse effects of CPP on the economy differ across plants.
respectively;
Such effects would be affected by the location, the total net elec-
PMC s
ui is the PMC occurred in city i, province s;
tricity generation and the emission intensity (i.e., emission per unit
PMC s
r is the PMC occurred in the rural area of province s;
net electricity generation) of CPP. It is necessary to identify the key
POP s
ui is the population of city i, province s;
CPP from various perspectives for efficiently offsetting the national
POP s
r is the population in the rural area of province s;
integral loss. R-type K-means cluster analysis, which suits the data
f s
ui is the final consumption in city i, province s;
scale of this study, is adopted. In addition, two indicators are pro-
f s
r is the final consumption in the rural area of province s;
posed to support the cluster analysis: (i) ILTP, the integral loss due
DLs is the direct loss triggered by the PMC occurred in province s.
to the total net power generation of a specific CPP; (ii) ILUP, the
Macro Loss is the total output decrease of China’s macroeco-
integral loss due to unit net power generation of a specific CPP. ILTP
nomic system due to PMC induced by CPP-PM2.5. Comparing with
the direct loss, the indirect economic losses resulted from the of CPP kcould reveal the integral effect of CPP kon the macro-
sectorial connectedness are considered in the macro loss. Following economy; ILUP of CPP kcould reveal the effect intensity of CPP kon
previous studies, MRIO is adopted to estimate the macro loss(Xia the macroeconomy. They are signified as Eq. (6) and Eq. (7):
et al., 2018). To integrate the direct loss into MRIO, the direct loss
X
2030
occurred in a region is transferred into the sectorial final con- ILTP k ¼ at  su  Lt  ykt (6)
sumption variations through multiplying by the sectorial final t¼2012
consumption mix of the region. Here, the macro loss due to PMC
occurred in province estimated through Eq. (4)(Mi et al., 2017): .
ILUP k ¼ ILTP k NEGk (7)

1
MLs ¼ su  ðІ
AÞ  ys ¼ su  L  ys (4)
where ykt is the final consumption variation vector induced by the
where MLs is the macro loss due to the PMC occurred in provinces; total net power generation of CPP k in year t;
su is the summation operator; NEGk is the net electricity generation (MWH=year) of CPP k.
І is an identity matrix;
A is the input-output coefficients matrix; 2.3.2. Macroeconomic structure optimization
L is the Leontief inverse matrix; Within a macroeconomic system, outputs of sectors could be in-
ys is the final consumption variation vector triggered by the puts of other sectors. Meanwhile, sectors would also reinput products
PMC in province s(sectors outside of province s are 0); into their own productions. Such processes could not only promote
the interdependencies of industries and regions but also integrate the
macroeconomic system (Miller and Blair, 2009). Input-output coef-
ficient matrix (A) under the framework of MRIO depicts the input
mixes of all sectors. According to previous study, the system-wide
2.2.2. Integral loss total output is sensitive to some important input-output coefficients
When a premature death occurred in a given year due to CPP- (for simplicity, input-output coefficients would be named coefficients
PM2.5, its impacts would not only ripple through the interregional in the following parts). Expending efforts to adjust the important
supply chains but also last for decades. Comparing with the macro coefficients could significantly increase the system-wide total output,
loss, the persistent effects of PMC on the economy is additional and further offset the integral loss induced by CPP-PM2.5. Inspired by
considered in integral loss. In this study, the years of life lost from Taranco
n et al., we propose the coefficient-output elasticity (COE) to
mortality (YLLs) is adopted to represent how long the effects of identify the important coefficients(Taranco
n et al., 2008). It is note-
PMC would last. According to GBD 2013, the average YLLs in China worthy CCP-PM2.5 would change the importance of coefficients,
induced by PM2.5 is 17.8 years, suggesting that the persistent effect because xj is affected by PMC. COEij is calculated through Eq. (8):
of PMC in 2012 would last to approximately 2030(Forouzanfar 0 1 0 1
et al., 2015; Naghavi et al., 2015; Vos et al., 2015; Zhao et al., P n P n
lki xj Daij
2011). The remaining effect weights of PMC (at ) are thus assumed B Dxk C B 1
l C
B k¼1 C B k¼1 ji Daij C
BP C  100 B P C
as 100% before 2030, 80% at 2030 and 0% after 2030. Based on above @ xk A
n
@
n
xk A
P
n
descriptions, integral loss of China triggered by PMC occurred in k¼1 k¼1
xj aij lki
k¼1
province s could be calculated through Eq. (5): COEij ¼ ! ¼ ! ¼ (8)
 P
n
Daij
 100
Daij 1
lji Daij xk
aij aij
k¼1
X
2030

1
X
2030
s
IL ¼ at  su  ðI
At Þ  yst ¼ at  su  Lt  yst
t¼2012 t¼2012 where aij and lki are the elements of Aand L, respectively;
(5) i,j and k represent different sectors;
xj is the total output of the sector j;
where t indicates a specific year between 2012 and 2030; Daij is the variation of aij ;
At is the input-output coefficients matrix in year t(The estima- COEij is the coefficient-output elasticity of aij .
tion process could be found in S1.2.2); To prove the efficiency of the method, how much an important
yst is the final consumption variation vector triggered by the coefficient should increase (in percentage) to offset the integral loss
PMC occurred in province s in year t(The estimation process could is further estimated through bisection method. Such increase is
be found in S1.2.2); named as the offset index in this study.
4
C. He, G. Huang, L. Liu et al.
2.4. Data collection
The operation and emission inventories of China’s CPP in 2012
were collected from (China Electricity Council, 2013a, 2013b, 2014;
Liu et al., 2015; Oberschelp et al., 2019). IF used in this study were
estimated by the method depicted in (Apte et al., 2012; Heath et al.,
2006; Humbert et al., 2011) and the data published in (Duan, 2013;
Fantke et al., 2017; Jolliet et al., 2018; Oberschelp et al., 2019), where
the differences in the provincial population breathing rate and the
population density around each CPP were considered. ERF was
gathered from (Apte et al., 2012; Burnett et al., 2014). In the direct
loss estimation, residential consumptions at city level were gath-
ered from 2013 provincial statistical yearbooks across China. The
MRIO in 2012 was compiled by Mi et al., which was aggregated to
30 industries within 30 Chinese provinces (Table S2 and Table S3)
(Mi et al., 2017, 2018).
3. Results
3.1. Adverse effects on human health and economy
The blue columns in Fig. 2 Show the provincial PMC induced by
different sources of CPP-PM2.5. For CPP-PM2.5(SO2), it resulted in
4099 PMC in China. At provincial level, Jiangsu was hit worst, at 942
PMC. Hubei, Zhejiang and Shanghai followed Jiangsu, with the
corresponding PMC at 402, 359 and 246, respectively. The total PMC
occurred in the four provinces due to CPP-PM2.5(SO2) accounted for
47.5% of that in China, implying the significance of CPP-SO2 control
in the four regions. The provincial PMC induced by CPP-PM2.5(NOX)
and CPP-PM2.5(PPM) were not centralized like that by CPP-
PM2.5(SO2). In 2012, CPP-PM2.5(NOX) and CPP-PM2.5(PPM) respec-
tively resulted in 10349 PMC and 7783 PMC in China. As the sources
of the primary energies or the bases of the heavy manufacturing,
Hebei, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia and Liaoning occurred substantial
PMC due to CPP-PM2.5(NOX). The situations in Shandong and Henan
were worse, because both CPP-PM2.5(NOX) and CPP-PM2.5(PPM)
imposed heavy health burdens on the two provinces. Chongqing
should pay more attentions to the CPP-PPM control, because there
Fig. 2. The provincial counts of the PMC and the economic losses induced by CPP-PM2.5(SO2), CPP-PM2.5(NOX), CPP-PM2.5(PPM) and CPP-PM2.5.
5
Journal of Cleaner Production 286 (2021) 125397
were 301 PMC induced by CPP-PM2.5(PPM), which was 3.3 and 1.7
times those by CPP-PM2.5 (SO2) and CPP-PM2.5 (NOX). In general, it
was estimated that CPP-PM2.5 caused 22,231 PMC in China during
2012. Within the 30 provinces, Gansu, Qinghai and Beijing paid the
least costs in human health, while Jiangsu paid the highest cost at
2230 PMC.
As for the economic losses, the direct loss, macro loss and in-
tegral loss of China in 2012 were estimated at CNY 316.6 million,
CNY 745.2 million, CNY 17004.6 million, respectively. At the na-
tional level, the macro loss and the integral loss were respectively
2.35 and 53.71 times the direct loss. At provincial level, the direct
losses (the green lines) and the macro losses (the yellow lines) of
provinces were ignorable comparing with their integral losses (the
red lines), as shown in Fig. 2. The results reveal that indirect effects
of the sectorial connectedness and the persistent effects of PMC
would result in staggering hidden economic losses. Because inte-
gral loss is more comprehensive than the other two, following
discussions about the economic loss would focus on the integral
loss. For CPP-PM2.5 (SO2), the relevant PMC occurred in Jiangsu
entailed CNY 954.77 million loss in China, which was far greater
than that entailed by the other provinces. In the other three sub-
figures of Fig. 2 (i.e., CPP-PM2.5(NOX), CPP-PM2.5(PPM) and CPP-
PM2.5), it could observe that the relevant PMC occurred in Jiangsu,
Liaoning and Shandong triggered considerable integral losses.
Therefore, limiting coal-fired power generation in the three prov-
inces is essential to the national economy. Specifically, Jiangsu
should put focus on CPP-SO2, while Shandong and Liaoning need to
pay more attentions to CPP-NOX and CPP-PPM.
The sectorial connectedness would result in cross-regional
economic losses. In other words, PMC occurred in a province
would trigger economic losses in other provinces. According to
Fig.S3, a majority economic loss occurred in each region was trig-
gered by the local PMC, because the diagonal blocks are much
darker than the others. Results about the cross-regional economic
losses are shown in Fig. 3. For CPP-PM2.5(SO2), the economies of
most provinces were impacted by the PMC occurred in Shanghai,
Jiangsu and Zhejiang, where Jiangsu was the most significant
influencer. Regarding CPP-PM2.5 (NOX), many orange and red blocks
C. He, G. Huang, L. Liu et al.
Fig. 3. The cross-regional economic loss. In this figure, a block corresponding to province A in column and province B in row shows the economic loss of province B that is
triggered by the PMC occurred in province A. For clear observation, the minor diagonal elements (i.e., the economic loss of a province triggered by the local PMC) are set as zero in
this figure. The original figure could be found in Fig. S3.
are found in the columns corresponding to Hebei, Inner Mongolia,
Liaoning and Henan. It suggests that relevant PMC occurred in the
four regions resulted in significant economic losses outside of their
territories. For example, Heilongjiang and Jilin respectively lost CNY
13.37 million and CNY 12.25 million due to the CPP-PM2.5 (NOX)-
induced PMC occurred in Liaoning. As for CPP-PPM and CPP-PM2.5,
relevant PMC in Liaoning and Jiangsu were influential to other
regions.
When we shift our focus from columns to rows, it could be
observed that several provinces were sensitive to the PMC occurred
in other provinces (i.e., Henan, Shandong, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Hebei
and Beijing). Among them, Jiangsu was the most sensitive one. In
general, Jiangsu played the most vital role in cross-regional eco-
nomic loss, because other provinces were sensitive to the PMC
occurred in Jiangsu and Jiangsu also was sensitive to the PMC
occurred in other provinces. There are some regions (e.g., Liaoning)
whose PMC considerably affected the economies of other regions,
while their economies were not sensitive to the PMC occurred in
other regions. However, some regions have the opposite situation,
such as Beijing. It is noteworthy that Shanghai, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and
Anhui were closely intertwined, because the relevant blocks in Fig. 3
are very dark. Specifically, the linkage between Jiangsu and Anhui
was the strongest. For instance, CPP-PM2.5-induced PMC occurred in
Jiangsu made Anhui lose CNY 42.74 million. The results suggest that
CPP abatement measure in one of the four provinces could efficiently
ease the economic burdens of the other three provinces.
3.2. Offset the economic loss
Given the trend towards increasing electricity demand and the
great inertia of energy system, China will face greater economic
6
Journal of Cleaner Production 286 (2021) 125397
burden in the future due to CPP-PM2.5(Michael et al., 2014). Thus,
exploring approaches to offset the relevant economic losses is
necessary. In this study, two approaches were developed. The first
approach is based on cluster analysis, aiming to identify the CPP
which are influential to the national economy. CPP within China
were classified into six clusters (Table .1), based on ILTP (i.e., the
integral loss triggered by the total net power generation of a
specific CPP), ILUP (i.e., the integral loss triggered by the unit net
power generation of a specific CPP). For simplification, CPP
belonging to a specific cluster would be represented by the name
of the cluster in the following analyses (e.g., cluster A means the
CPP belonging to cluster A). Cluster A, whose average ILTP and
ILUP were less than half of the national average, accounting for
74.0% of CPP within China. There were 23.8% of the studied CPP
belonging to cluster B and C. One indicator (ILTP or ILUP) of the
two types is about three times the national average, while the
other indicator is around the national average. Only 2.3% of CPP in
China were classified into cluster D, E, and F. However, if CPP-PM2.5
originated from the three clusters fall to zero, the national integral
loss would reduce by CNY 3.94 billion, accounting for 23.18% of the
integral loss in China. Thus, cluster D, E, and F were identified as
the key CPP which deserve the additional policy inflows. The
average ILIE of cluster D was 12.62 times the national average
(CNY 417.7). However, their ILTP were 2.4 times the national
average. ILTP and ILUP of cluster E were 12.18 and 3.34 times the
national average, respectively. Concerning cluster F, their average
ILTP and ILIE were CNY 167.3 million and CNY 236.9, corre-
sponding to 9.08 and 7.16 times the national average, respectively.
The locations of cluster D, E, and F are shown in Fig. 4. It could be
observed that a majority clusters D and F were near or within
Shanghai, the most populous and rich city in China.
C. He, G. Huang, L. Liu et al.
Table 1
Details of the six clusters.
Cluster Name Average ILTP (Million CNY)
A 7.6
B 57.0
C 17.8
D 44.7
E 224.4
F 167.3
The national average 18.4
The second approach is to adjust the economic structure. In
detail, the approach aims to offset the national integral loss by
increasing the system-wide total output, which is sensitive to the
important coefficients with high COE. As displayed in Fig. 5, COE of
a majority coefficients were inconspicuous. The coefficients with
COE higher than 0.01 were identified as the important coefficients.
Their COE and offset indexes are shown in Table 2. The coefficient
with the highest COE corresponded to the self-input (i.e., the input
that is required by per unit output of a sector from itself) of the
chemical industry in Shandong, which amounted at 0.028. Ac-
cording to the offset index, if the coefficient increased by 0.018%,
the national integral loss caused by CPP-PM2.5 could be offset. The
other four important coefficients also corresponded to the self-
inputs of various sectors; their COE ranged between 0.011 and
0.017, with the offset indexes variating from 0.028% to 0.043% (see
Table 2).
4. Uncertainty analysis
The results of this study are subjected to certain uncertainties
that are contained in different steps of the analysis, including (a)
the emission inventory of CPP, (b) the estimation of PMC, (c) the
persistent effects of PMC, (d) the operation of MRIO model, and (e)
other potential sources. The uncertainties were estimated by
running 10,000 Monte Carlo simulation trials (Table 3).
Fig. 4. The locations of key CPP. The key CPP consist of three clusters. The three clusters are respectively depicted by the blue rhombuses (cluster D), the green triangles (cluster E),
and the red stars (cluster F) in this figure. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the Web version of this article.)
7
Journal of Cleaner Production 286 (2021) 125397
Average ILUP (CNY) Proportion (%)
12.8 74.0
45.4 14.7
118.3 9.1
417.7 0.9
110.7 0.4
236.9 0.9
33.1
(a) The emission inventory of CPP
The emission and operation inventories of China’s CPP in 2012
were mainly collected from (Oberschelp et al., 2019), and the
related uncertainties were well discussed in this research. For
example, the capacity of major power plants was extended around
2010 but was not completed until 2012. Thus, the data were not up
to date and the total electricity generation was underestimated by
approximately 10.2%. Additionally, technique upgrading widely
happened in China’s CPP in recent years, but the corresponding
information usually was not updated over time, which may result
in an overestimation of CPP-PM2.5. Meanwhile, the co-combustion
of alternative fuels was omitted in the estimation of (Oberschelp
et al., 2019). Since the composition, combustion and emission
characteristics of alternative fuels are different from those of coal,
real emissions could decrease by 3.9%.
(b) The estimation of PMC
The method adopted in this study for PMC estimation is subject
to several limitations. First, due to a lack of conclusive evidence for
differential toxicity, the emission-based method assumes that the
toxicity of all types of PM2.5 is equal at a given exposure level.
Second, the temporal exposure pattern and the interactions among
different types of combustion are not accounted for in this method.
In addition, the population variability of the method is not
C. He, G. Huang, L. Liu et al.
Fig. 5. The coefficient-output elasticity (COE) of all input-output coefficients. There are 810, 000 columns, because the adopted MRIO was aggregated to 30 industries within 30
Chinese provinces. Each column represents an input-output coefficient, and the height of each column shows the corresponding COE. The full name of each province could be found
in Table S4.
Table 2
COE and offset percentage of the five important coefficients.
Coefficient
(Shandong-Chemical industry)/(Shandong-Chemical industry)
(Jiangsu-Chemical industry)/(Jiangsu-Chemical industry)
(Guangdong-Electronic equipment)/(Guangdong-Electronic equipment)
(Zhejiang-Chemical industry)/(Zhejiang-Chemical industry)
(Jiangsu-Electronic equipment)/(Jiangsu-Electronic equipment)
Note: a coefficient shown in (A)/(B) means the input that is required by per unit output of B from A.
considered, which introduce additional uncertainties to this study.
Due to the complexity of the above uncertainties, existing epide-
miological studies cannot support the exact quantification of PMC.
We thus add a 30% uncertainty to the PMC result.
(c) The persistent effects of PMC
According to GBD 2013, the average YLLs induced by PM2.5,
which not take age or gender weighting into consideration, range
from 12.6 years to 23.26 years in China (the average value is 17.8
years) (Forouzanfar et al., 2015; Lelieveld et al., 2015; Smith et al.,
2014).
(d) The operation of the MRIO model
The uncertainty of the MRIO model is derived from economic
statistics, data harmonization and sectoral mapping. Peters et al.,
compared different global MRIO models and suggested a 13% un-
certainty for the past estimations of global CO2 emissions embodied
in trade(Andrew and Peters, 2013; Peters et al., 2011). This sug-
gestion was adopted by several published studies, such as Zhang
et al. and Chen et al.(Chen et al., 2019; Zhang et al., 2017). Therefore,
we add a 13% uncertainty to PMC in this study to represent the
uncertainty of macro loss and integral loss derived from the MRIO.
(e) Other potential sources
Some studies questioned the reliability of Chinese statistics. For
example, Guan et al. found that a huge difference existed between
8
Journal of Cleaner Production 286 (2021) 125397
COE Offset index (%)
0.028 0.018
0.017 0.028
0.012 0.033
0.014 0.039
0.011 0.043
national and provincial statistics(Guan et al., 2012). To handle such
uncertainties, we following the common practice used by Lin et al.,
Wu et al., and the UNEP, assuming that these data embody 10%
uncertainty(Lin et al., 2016; Wu et al., 2016).
5. Discussion
PM2.5 is a significant environmental risk factor for human
health. PM2.5 intake has resulted in a lot of premature mortality
cases and further put heavy burdens on the socio-economy. This
study thus developed an integral framework to (i) quantify the
healthy and the economic costs of PM2.5 intake; (2) explore the way
to offset such adverse effects. Considering the vital role that coal-
fired power plants plays in China’s economy and air pollution,
this study focuses on the PM2.5 form coal-fired power plants in
China to prove the availability of the developed framework.
The results reveal that CPP-PM2.5 resulted in 22,231 PMC in
China during 2012, where the contributions of CPP-PM2.5(SO2),
CPP-PM2.5(NOX) and CPP-PM2.5(PPM) were 18.44%, 46.55% and
35.01%, respectively. CPP-SO2 control should focus on Jiangsu,
Hubei, Zhejiang and Shanghai, since PMC occurred in the four
provinces accounted for 47.5% of that occurred in China.
The integral loss of China in 2012 were estimated at CNY
17004.6 million, which was 22.82 times the macro loss and 53.71
times the direct loss. The results reveal that the indirect effects of
the sectorial connectedness and the persistent effects of PMC
would result in staggering hidden economic losses. Assessing the
economic losses from a comprehensive perspective could avoid
myopic policies and ensure the rational policy-making. Jiangsu,
C. He, G. Huang, L. Liu et al. Journal of Cleaner Production 286 (2021) 125397

Table 3
Uncertainties of provincial IL in China including all analyzed uncertainties.

SO2 NOX PPM Total

LB (%) UB (%) LB (%) UB (%) LB (%) UB (%) LB (%) UB (%)

Beijing
18.77 19.19
18.98 21.42
19.13 21.43
18.84 20.77

Tianjin
22.29 25.14
23.92 28.56
24.10 28.36
22.31 27.02
Hebei
21.61 25.28
23.46 25.49
22.94 27.26
22.88 26.23
Shanxi
20.75 24.24
21.29 26.89
21.99 26.91
21.47 25.97
Inner Mongolia
19.21 20.48
22.95 25.52
21.87 24.09
22.06 24.11
Liaoning
27.20 27.30
23.98 25.10
23.92 27.12
23.63 24.21
Jilin
22.85 24.06
21.15 28.05
20.36 27.02
20.12 26.77
Heilongjiang
18.93 20.43
22.82 26.32
20.86 25.14
21.58 24.62
Shanghai
24.79 32.76
25.63 27.19
24.97 27.85
22.75 27.63
Jiangsu
24.70 27.49
23.66 26.94
23.04 28.58
23.89 26.72
Zhejiang
21.36 26.47
20.72 23.30
21.11 23.45
21.07 22.55
Anhui
20.58 24.07
21.74 25.35
20.42 24.92
20.71 24.99
Fujian
23.92 27.93
22.38 26.50
22.40 26.22
22.06 25.45
Jiangxi
21.00 23.61
22.29 26.29
22.38 26.99
21.59 25.16
Shandong
22.69 21.56
21.12 22.79
20.85 23.67
20.68 22.66
Henan
20.92 22.68
22.57 26.06
22.36 27.23
22.32 26.28
Hubei
25.12 29.66
23.19 29.26
22.66 29.94
22.02 28.01
Hunan
20.64 22.46
22.33 22.60
23.23 25.16
21.83 22.84
Guangdong
22.55 25.01
20.29 26.16
20.84 26.31
20.39 24.53
Guangxi
20.12 27.66
21.95 27.06
20.26 28.48
20.70 25.94
Hainan
22.38 24.78
22.72 26.09
26.82 25.97
23.12 24.22
Chongqing
26.00 25.79
22.66 26.50
23.56 26.92
22.59 25.31
Sichuan
22.86 32.95
22.38 26.38
21.87 26.14
21.26 24.67
Guizhou
23.52 29.46
22.66 31.03
23.26 30.06
22.64 30.43
Yunnan
22.53 29.10
23.52 31.48
23.57 31.94
22.94 29.16
Shaanxi
20.68 22.51
21.58 30.71
21.41 29.12
21.12 29.06
Gansu
17.71 18.28
20.37 24.24
20.90 24.48
20.33 23.43
Qinghai
24.07 27.62
28.89 33.27
27.68 29.40
27.10 30.53
Ningxia
23.93 29.48
24.70 25.97
24.44 24.23
23.57 24.94
Xinjiang
20.54 23.31
22.48 25.12
21.90 27.04
21.49 25.10

Note: LB ¼ Lower Bound; UB¼Upper Bound. LB and UB are the 5th and 95th percentile of values generated following the Monte Carlo uncertainty analysis.

Liaoning and Shandong were the three provinces with top contri-
butions to the national integral loss. In detail, Jiangsu should focus
on CPP-SO2, while Shandong and Liaoning need to pay more at-
tentions to CPP-NOX and CPP-PPM. Xia et al., estimated the eco-
nomic losses of China due to PM2.5-induced labour time loss. They
found that the total economic loss from PM2.5 intake in China
during 2012 amounted to CNY398.23 billion, which was equivalent
with 1.0% of China’s GDP in 2012(Xia et al., 2018). Their result is
different from ours, since we focused on the adverse effects
induced by PM2.5 from the coal-fired power plants in China, while
their focused on the adverse effects induced by PM2.5 from all
sources.
It is worth noting that the geographical distribution of economic
losses not fully followed the variation pattern of PMC. In other
words, a province with a large number of PMC may not entail sig-
nificant integral loss, and vice versa. For example, the CPP-PM2.5-
induced PMC in Beijing and Guizhou were 53 and 570, accounting
for 0.02% and 2.56% of that in China. However, the integral losses
triggered by them were CNY 176.88 million and CNY 209.61 million,
accounting for 1.04% and 1.36% of the integral loss in China. The
contributions of Beijing and Guizhou on the national integral loss
were respectively 4.33 and 0.52 times those on the national PMC.
The situations of Shanghai and Zhejiang were similar to Beijing,
while that of Qinghai and Yunnan were the same as Guizhou.
Shanghai, Zhejiang and Beijing are rich and developed regions
whose economies are dominated by services and advanced
manufacturing. In contrast, Qinghai, Yunnan and Guizhou are
remote and landlocked regions in China, which remain in the
relatively backward states. Thus, more attentions should be payed
to the pollution-intensive projects in such developed regions (i.e.,
Shanghai, Zhejiang and Beijing), because a minor wrong decision of
them would be at a great cost of the national economy.
The roles that provinces played in the national integral loss were
different, because of the inter-provincial connections. PMC
occurred in Hebei, Inner Mongolia, Liaoning and Henan resulted in
significant economic losses outside of their territories. However,
the loss of Beijing was sensitive to the PMC occurred in other re-
gions. Thus, Beijing could provide monetary or technological sup-
ports for the CPP-PM2.5 abatement in other regions, which would
be beneficial to both parties. Specifically, Jiangsu played the most
vital role in the cross-regional economic loss, which led it deserves
the most policy inflows for mitigating China’s integral loss. For the
short term, the local government could subsidize CPP to adopt
advanced fuel-gas treatment technologies for encouraging CPP-
PM2.5 abatement. For the long term, coal-fired power in Jiangsu
should be gradually replaced by clean-energies, such as solar
photovoltaic power and solar thermal power.
Comparing with previous studies, this study additionally
explored the approaches for efficiently offsetting the adverse ef-
fects. The cluster-based approach revealed that if CPP-PM2.5 from
cluster D, E, and F fall to zero, the national integral loss would
reduce by CNY 3.94 billion, which accounts for 23.18% of the na-
tional integral loss. According to the results, it is easy to observe
that Cluster D consisted of small-scale CPP, whose unit net power
generation was at a great cost of the national economy. Such CPP
should be phased out to ensure the social welfare. Considerable net
power generation was the main reason why cluster E imposed
heavy burdens on China’s economy. In general, surveillances
against cluster E should be tightened, because a slight fluctuation of
their emission intensities would result in huge variations of the
national integral loss. Cluster F consisted of large-scale CPP whose
unit net power generation would result in great integral loss. Thus,
cluster F deserves large-scale investments for abatement technol-
ogy upgrade and production process optimization. Fig. 4 shows that

9
C. He, G. Huang, L. Liu et al.
a majority of cluster D and F were near or within Shanghai, the most
populous and rich city in China. Considering the enormously fixed
electricity demand of the metropolis, efficient power plants and
smart grids are rational in the short term. However, for the long
term, constructing the required infrastructure for natural gas or
biomass are necessary for the full or partial fuel switch of CPP.
Although a previous study reported that the improvement poten-
tial of efficiency at individual CPP could be up to 15%, it is expen-
sive(US Energy Information Administration, 2015). Nevertheless, it
could be an alternative option for Shanghai, because of its solid
economic background.
The approach based on the coefficient-output elasticity (COE)
provided valuable information for economic structure adjustment
to offset the integral loss. There were only 5 coefficients with COE
greater than 0.01 among the examined 810000 coefficients, whose
offset indexes variated from 0.018% to 0.043%. To be specific, if the
sectors corresponding to the five important coefficients gave more
preferences to their own products, the CPP-PM2.5-induced integral
loss in China would be offset by the increased national total output.
Although the offset indexes of the important coefficients were very
small, they were estimated under the variation of one important
coefficient. In other words, the national integral loss could be offset
under the ignorable adjustments, when several important co-
efficients are adjusted simultaneously. For example, the national
integral loss could be offset with the simultaneously increases of
the five important coefficients at 5:85  10
3 %.
The main contributions of this study are threefold: (i) an integral
framework which covers health impact assessment, economic
losses estimation and adverse effects offset was developed;
although the framework was only applied to CPP-PM2.5 in China, it
is referable for other regions facing the similar threats on human
health and economy; (ii) the integral loss, which simultaneously
considers the indirect effects of sectorial connectedness and the
persistent effects of premature mortality cases, was proposed; it
could reveal the long-term economic loss at macro level; (iii) two
approaches, respectively based on key coal-fired power plants
identification and economic structure adjustment, were proposed
to offset the economic loss; it is worth to note that the approach
based on economic structure adjustment is extremely effective
while was barely studied in previous.
Although only PM2.5 is taken into consideration, this study could
(i) alert people the staggering potential threats of coal-fired power
on the social welfare; (ii) reveal the significance of the energy
system transition. The obtained results could support the far-
sighted policy development for mitigating the adverse effects of
CPP-PM2.5 on human health and economy. In the future, integrating
climate adaption narratives and identifying the interactions among
different pollutants from various sources are interesting research
avenues.
6. Conclusion
In this study, the premature mortality cases and the economic
losses induced by PM2.5 from China’s coal-fired power plants (CPP-
PM2.5) were assessed. Two approaches which respectively based on
cluster analysis and coefficient-output elasticity were proposed to
offset the adverse impacts. The primary conclusions and the
emerged policy implications of this study are fourfold:
1. The integral loss in China was 53.71 times the direct loss. Thus,
assessing economic losses from a more comprehensive
perspective could avoid myopic decision-makings and ensure
the long-term social welfare.
2. The adverse impacts of CPP-PM2.5(NOX) was the greatest while
those of the CPP-PM2.5(SO2) was the most centralized. In 2012,
10
Journal of Cleaner Production 286 (2021) 125397
46.56% of the premature mortality cases and 41.11% of the in-
tegral loss occurred in China due to CPP-PM2.5 were attributable
to CPP-PM2.5(NOX), suggesting the significance of CPP-NOX
abatement. Nearly half of the premature mortality cases and the
economic losses induced by CPP-PM2.5(SO2) within China were
occurred in Jiangsu, Hubei, Zhejiang and Shanghai. Thus, for the
coal-fired power plants in the four regions, additional attentions
should be paid to the emission of CPP-SO2.
3. Provinces played different roles in cross-regional economic
losses. Premature mortality cases occurred in Liaoning would
entail great economic losses in other provinces, while the total
output of Beijing was sensitive to the premature mortality cases
occurred in other provinces. Among the 30 provinces, Jiangsu
was the worst hit province in both human health and economic
output. Meanwhile, it played the most significant role in the
interregional connection. A minor risk in Jiangsu would spread
across the country and result in huge economic losses. Thus,
China must prioritize the CPP-PM2.5 control in Jiangsu for effi-
ciently mitigating the discussed adverse effects. Countermea-
sures, like establishing tighter air quality goals, installing better
flue-gas treatment facilities, phasing out laggard coal-fired po-
wer plants and using cleaner energy to replace coal-fired power,
are necessary.
4. The national integral loss could be offset through the proper
adjustments against the key coal-fired power plants and the
economic structure. Key coal-fired power plants (accounting
2.17% of the coal-fired power plants in China), mainly around
Shanghai, had potential to reduce 23.18% of the national integral
loss. In addition, increasing the self-input proportion of the
chemical industry in Shandong by 0.018% could offset the na-
tional integral loss.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Chengyu He: Conceptualization, Data curation, Investigation,
Methodology, Validation, Formal analysis, Visualization, Writing -
original draft, Writing - review & editing. Guohe Huang: Concep-
tualization, Funding acquisition, Supervision, Project administra-
tion, Writing - review & editing. Lirong Liu: Supervision,
Validation, Visualization, Writing - review & editing. Yongping Li:
Supervision, Writing - review & editing. Mengyu Zhai: Writing -
review & editing. Rong Cao: Visualization.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing
financial interests or personal relationships that could have
appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgments
This research was supported by the National Key Research and
Development Plan [grant numbers 2016YFC0502800,
2016YFA0601502] the Natural Sciences Foundation [grant
numbers 51520105013, 51679087], the 111 Program [grant
numbers B14008] and the Natural Science and Engineering
Research Council of Canada.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.125397.
C. He, G. Huang, L. Liu et al. Journal of Cleaner Production 286 (2021) 125397

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