Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

permaculture - Environmental Damage Valuation & Cost Benefit News (EDV&CBN)--April, (fwd)

permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: permaculture

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Victor Guest <vic@daena.eepo.com.au>
  • To: Permaculture WA <perma@eepo.com.au>
  • Subject: Environmental Damage Valuation & Cost Benefit News (EDV&CBN)--April, (fwd)
  • Date: Tue, 01 Jul 1997 12:53:22 WST

-------------------------------------------------------------------
This is part of information from this Newsletter which I have kept.
WWW sites for more info are included here.

Vic
_________________________________________________________________

Font Courier 12 with one inch margins recommended

ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE VALUATION
AND
COST BENEFIT NEWS


VOLUME IV # 4 APRIL, 1997


CONTENTS


ENERGY

THE SOCIAL COSTS OF ELECTRICITY
PROVIDING ECONOMICALLY EFFICIENT BIOMASS CROPS


WATER

WETLANDS MITIGATION BANKING
MOBILE HOME PARK WASTEWATER VIOLATION FINES
THE SOCIETAL VALUE OF WATER
NEW ENGLAND FISHING LIMITS INSUFFICIENT


GENERAL

CV STUDY MEETS BLUE RIBBON PANEL'S TEST
ECOLOGICAL TAX REFORM: CARBON TAXES IN NY
NEW ESTIMATOR FOR CONTINGENT VALUATION


AIR

PROJECTION OF MARKET PRICES FOR AIR EMISSIONS


NON-ENVIRONMENTAL COST BENEFIT NEWS

COMPUTER ASSISTED DECISION SUPPORT FOR DRUGS
HOSPITAL DRUG REACTIONS
DEADWEIGHT LOSS OF CHRISTMAS
U.S. SOCIAL WELL-BEING AT 25 YEAR LOW IN 1994
COSTS AND BENEFITS OF HOME FORECLOSURES




ENERGY


THE SOCIAL COSTS OF ELECTRICITY


In "The Social Costs of Electricity: Do the Numbers Add Up" Alan
J. Krupnik and Dallas Burtraw review and compare attempts to
estimate externalities resulting from the generation of
electricity. The paper also provides a synthesis that can help
reduce the cost of these applications in the future.

Six studies are considered.

1) Regional Economic Research (RER, 1991) calculated damages
associated with airborne pollutants for the California Energy
Commission on a project and site specific basis. Analysis was
limited to generation activities.

2) National Economic Research Associates (NERA, 1993) estimated
damages from electric utility resource selection for the Nevada
Power Company.

3) Triangle Economic Research (TER, 1995) developed damage per
ton estimates for adding a combination of a new coal plant and
several natural gas combined cycle plants in 2006. It
estimated hourly damages at the zip code level and used Monte
Carlo simulation techniques to express uncertainty. Analysis
was limited to generation activities.

4) Oak Ridge National Laboratories / Resources for the Future
(Lee et. al., 1995) studied damages from six generation
technologies (coal, oil, gas, hydro, nuclear, and biomass) in
Oak Ridge, Tennessee and northern New Mexico for the U.S.
Department of Energy. All stages and pollutants were
considered initially, but many pathways were eliminated.
Uncertainty was expressed through Monte Carlo simulations.

5) European Commission (EC, 1995) estimated externalities for
nine fuel cycles (coal, lignite, biomass, nuclear, oil, natural
gas, photovoltaic, hydro and wind) for West Burton in the U.K.
and Lauffer in Baden Wurttemberg in Germany. Uncertainty was
described qualitatively through expert judgments.

6) Hagler Bailly with the Tellus Institute (HB, 1995) built a
computer model (EXMOD) to estimate damages from new and
repowered generation plants in the New York Area.

EXMOD and the TER study were discussed in the Winter/95 and
September/96 issues of EDV&CBN.

The Table below presents key facts regarding the major models


COMPARISON OF APPROACHES


Study Lee EC Hagler TER
Bailley

Site Knoxville Lauffen Albany Metro Fringe
TN Germany New York Minnesota

Scenarios New 1990 coal plant New 2006 plant
coal & GCC

Fuel Cycles C o m p r e h e n s i v e Coal & gas only

Pathways C o m p r e h e n s i v e Air,health,
visibility,
materials,crops
Local Area 80km radius 100 km2 50km radius 800x700 km

Domain Eastern US Europe NE US Minnesota,
14 states W. Wisconsin
S. So.Dakota

Plant Characteristics:
Capacity 500MW 690MW 300MW 400MW
Utilization 75% 65%
Lifetime 40 years

Net emissions (g/kWh):
SO2 1.58 0.80 1.74 Not
NOX 2.68 0.80 1.90 provided
Particulates 0.14 0.18 0.14

Stack Parameters:
Height 150m 240m 150m 137m
Diameter 9.4m 10m 4m 5.6m
Temperature 400K
Velocity 30m/s

Air Modeling:
Ozone OZIPM-4 KRAMM-DRAIS EKMA Regression
Model
PM10,SO2,No2,Pb ISCLT Gaussian ISC2LT ISCST2

Population:
Local 866,000 3,800,000 638,000 6,400,000
Total 193,000,000 477 mill. 93,000,000 6,400,000

COMPARISON OF APPROACHES (continued)

Study Lee EC Hagler TER
Bailley

Value of Statistical
Life $3.5 million $3.25 mill. $3.3 mill.
if > 65 $3.0 mill.
if < 65 $4.0 mill.

Discount Rate 5% 3% 5% default ?

Base Year 1989 1989 1992 1993

Uncertainty Monte Carlo Qualitative Beta Monte Carlo
Distribution

Unique Advances:
Distinction Noise User Acute health
between forests friendly valuation from
damages and materials computer meta analysis
externalities inventory model and health
mercury-health index


The damages for each of the fuel cycles are "small", only a few
percent of private generation costs. They are also small
relative to estimates from earlier studies, such as Pace (1990),
which found damages for coal of 60 mills/kWh. One mill equals
$0.001. They are also small with respect to "adders" in use in
many states in resource planning, which range from 10 to 12 mills
per kilowatt-hour for coal. Damages are small, partly because
new plants are subjected to New Source Performance Standards and
strict siting processes. The table below summarizes the results.


MEAN DAMAGES FROM ELECTRIC FUEL CYCLES
(mills/kWh)

New Plant Type Lee EC HB Private
Costs

Pulverized Coal 1.3 19.0 2.9 54-64
Nuclear Pressure Water Reactor 0.3 0.3 0.2
Gas CCGT 0.2 0.9 0.3 35-48
Oil
Low Emissions Boiler 0.2
Steam Boiler 1.2
Combustion Turbine 14.9
Oil Distillate Turbine 1.7
Biomass 1.7 NE 4.2 47-60
Occupation Health Included Yes Yes
Road Damage? Yes Yes
SO2 Damages? Yes


Alan J. Krupnik and Dallas Burtraw "The Social Costs of
Electricity: Do the Numbers Add Up" Resources for the Future
Discussion Paper 96-20 May, 1996 1616 P Street, NW Washington,
DC 20036 (202) 328-5000 http://www.rff.org

William R. Cline (1992) Global Warming: The Economic Stakes
(Washington, D.C.) Institute of International Economics

European Commission (1995) Externalities of Energy: ExternE
Project. For the Directorate General XII, Prepared by
Metroeconomica, CEPN, IER, Eyre Energy-Environment, ETSU, Ecole
des Mines

S. Fankhauser (1993) Global Warming Damage Costs - Some Monetary
Estimates, CSERGE GEC Working Paper 92-29, University of East
Anglia

Hagler Bailly Consulting, Inc. (1995) The New York State
Externalities Cost Study (Dobbs Ferry, New York) Oceana
Publications

R. Lee (1995) Externalities Study: Why Are the Numbers Different?
Draft Paper prepared for the Third International Workshop on
Externality Costs, Ladenburg, Germany, May 27-30

R. Lee, A.J. Krupnick, D. Burtraw, et.a l. (1995) Estimating
Externalities of Electric Fuel Cycles: Analytical Methods and
Issues, Estimating Externalities of Coal Fuel Cycles and
additional volumes for other fuel cycles (Washington, D.C.),
McGraw-Hill/Utility Data Institute

National Economic Research Associates, Inc. (March, 1993)
External Costs of Electric Utility Resource Selection in Nevada,
prepared for Nevada Power Company, Cambridge, Mass.

Pace University (1990) Environmental Costs of Electricity
Richard Ottinger, ed. (White Plains, New York Oceana Press)

R.S.J. Tol (1995) "The Damage Costs of Global Warming
Emissions," The Dutch Coal Fuel Cycle, ExternE Project,
forthcoming

Regional Economic Research Inc. (1991) Valuing the Environmental
Impacts of Alternative Energy Resources, prepared for the
California Energy Commission, Sacramento, California, prepared in
San Diego, California

Triangle Economic Research (1995) Assessing Environmental
Externality Costs for Electricity Generation, prepared for
Northern States Power Company, Minnesota Durham, N.C.


PROVIDING ECONOMICALLY EFFICIENT BIOMASS CROPS


In "Biomass Fuel from Woody Crops for Electric Power" Robert
Perlack, Lynn Wright, Michael Huston, and William Schrammin note
that the economic feasibility of sustaining a biomass crop is
dependent on feedstock production cost, productive efficiency,
production costs, and capital conversion technology. Feasibility
studies tend to show that plantation-grown biomass-to-electricity
projects can be financially viable if local conditions are
favorable and the cost of conventional power supplies is high.
Location Feedstock cost Average Productivity
($/GJ) drytonnes/ha/yr

U.S. mainland $1.90 - $2.80 10 - 15.5
Hawaii $2.06 - $3.20 18.6 - 22.4
Portugal $2.30 15.0
Sweden $4.00 6.5 - 12.0
Brazil (Northeast) $0.97 - $4.60 3.0 - 21.0
China (Southwest) $0.60 8
Philippines $0.42 - $1.18 15


Robert D. Perlack, Lynn L. Wright, Michael A. Huston, William E.
Schramm, Biofuels Feedstock Development Program, Energy Division,
Environmental Sciences Division Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831-620 Prepared in collaboration with
Winrock International, Biomass Energy Systems and Technology
Project "Biomass Fuel from Woody Crops for Electric Power
Generation" ORNL-6871", September 21, 1995 modified on October
21, 1996 for the U.S. Department of Energy under contract DE-AC05-84OR21400
Kenneth Acks, Editor and Publisher

ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE VALUATION & COST BENEFIT NEWS (EDV&CBN)

22 East Olive Street 250 West 57th Street
Second Floor Suite 1527
Long Beach, New York 11561 New York, New York 10107
voice: (516) 897-9728 voice (212) 969-0797
fax: (516) 897-9185 fax: (212) 582-0593

kenacks@delphi.com or dva.ka@worldnet.att.net
http://people.delphi.com/kenacks




  • Environmental Damage Valuation & Cost Benefit News (EDV&CBN)--April, (fwd), Victor Guest, 07/01/1997

Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page