Christopher H. Schroeder

Public Choice and Environmental Policy

Public choice theory sheds light on many aspects of legislation, regulation, and constitutional law and is critical to a sophisticated understanding of public policy. The editors of this landmark addition to the law and economics literature have organized the Handbook into four main areas of inquiry: foundations, constitutional law and democracy, administrative design and action, and specific statutory schemes. The original contributions, authored by top scholars in the field, provide helpful introductions to important topics in public choice and public law while also exploring the institutional complexity of American democracy.

Flexibility of scale in large conventional coal-fired power plants☆

Abstract The distinction between large, conventional coal-fired power plants composed of large units (800–1300 MW) and large plants composed of small units (400–600 MW) has not been appreciated in the literature, yet it is significant. It is the central contention of this paper that the construction of large plants (1500–5000 MW) composed of small units yields the benefits associated with the various scale economies of large plants per se. These include economic, environmental, reliability and social factors. We argue that our proposal — a large plant/small unit configuration — has, in addition to scale economies, advantages of flexibility in generation and system planning. It is further suggested that the need for power review and the assessment of alternative generating technologies take place in hearings separate from those related to site-specific issues. In approving a site, we argue that acceptability, not absolute superiority, is the standard against which sites should be judged.