The Impact of Coal-Fired, Soot on China's Industrial Production and Total Factor Energy Efficiency

With the rapid economic growth, the energy demand is increasing in China. Coal accounts for the largest proportion of China's energy consumption, and low coal use efficiency will generate more undesirable output like CO2 and soot, which inevitably lead to environmental problems and human diseases. This paper aims to measure the impact of coal-fired, soot on industrial production efficiency and total factor energy production efficiency of China through directional Slacks-based Measure model (directional-SBM) and Total Factor Energy Efficiency model (TFEE), and pay more attention to the relationship between soot emissions and industrial production efficiency. The results show that China's industrial production efficiency and factor efficiency are underperforming, and there exist huge room for improvement in soot emissions and coal usage. Only a few developed provinces and provinces with small industrial scale are at the efficient frontier, and less than half of the regions exceeds 0.9. Moreover, from 2012 to 2016, while China's coal use has been increasing, the efficiency has been declining. The adjustment value of coal consumption has increased from 16 to 20%, resulting in serious pollution and waste of resources. In general, there is a big gap in industrial production and total factor energy production efficiency between China and developed economies. Therefore, it is necessary for China to accelerate technological reform and optimize the energy consumption structure to improve energy efficiency and reduce pollution, and provide a reference for the coal industry in other developing countries.