External Environmental Costs of Electric Power: Analysis and Internalization

ISBN-13: 9783642767142 / Angielski / Miękka / 2012 / 497 str.

Olav Hohmeyer; Richard Ottinger

Opis

Environmental costs of electric power generation are receiving increasing attention as an important input to planning and decision processes. Since the outstart of the discussion on the monetized environmental costs of electricity in 1988 a number of studies have been conducted on the subject, producing partially contradictory results. Simultaneously political action has resulted from the first stage on this discussion process. In Germany the higher rates which have to be payed to autoproducers based on renewable energy sources have been explicitly justified by the existence of external environmental costs of conventional electricity generation. At the same time some state regulatory commissions in the United States have introduced adders for environmental costs in the utility planning process. This book reports on the first international workshop on the subject, bringing together practically all experts in the field of research and political implementation from the United States and Germany, the two pioneering countries. The more than thirty contributed papers contained in this volume give the most comprehensive and up-to-date overview of the field. Some papers already outline the future course of research by giving an overview over some major research projects, which have just started.

Spis treści

1. Introduction.- 2. Some conclusions from the workshop.- 3. Subject area 1: Recent results of the research on environmental damages — An introductory overview.- 3.1 Tasks and problems of analysis and evaluation of emission impacts on terrestrial ecosystems.- 3.2 Economic losses to society due to material damages of environmental pollution in the Federal Republic of Germany.- 3.3 Global warming, climate protection measures of the Enquête-Commission of the German parliament.- 3.4 The externalities of global warming.- 4. Subject area 2: Monetization of environmental damages.- 4.1 Environmental externalities measurement: Quantification, valuation and monetization.- 4.2 Basic problems in valuating environmental damages: The case of forest damage.- 4.3 The valuation of environmental externalities in utility regulation.- 4.4 Integrating energy and the environment in the marketplace.- 4.5 Valuation of environmental cost by heat emissions from pollution control.- 4.6 Contingent valuation study of the environmental costs of electricity generating technologies.- 4.7 A comparison of emissions and externality costs of waste-to-energy and coal fired electric power plants.- 4.8 Incorporating externalities in least-cost planning: The use of control costs, standards, and multi-attribute approaches.- 5. Subject area 3: Impacts of the internalisation of external costs.- 5.1 Impacts of external costs on the competitive position of wind energy in the Federal Republic of Germany.- 5.2 External costs of electricity generation.- 5.3 External costs involved in generating electrical energy in the Eastern part of Germany.- 5.4 Facing up to the true environmental costs of electric power generation.- 6. Subject area 4: Ways of internalizing external costs — Theoretical considerations.- 6.1 Methods for valuing and incorporating environmental costs in electric resource planning and acquisition.- 6.2 Role of control costs in developing climate change policy.- 6.3 Cooperative research, development, and demonstration opportunities in environmental externalities and energy planning.- 6.4 Environmental externalities in utility planning.- 6.5 Externalities and least-cost planning: The threshold of a revolution.- 6.6 Internalization of “external” costs: Necessary, but not sufficient!.- 7. Subject area 5: Ways of internalizing external costs — Practical approaches.- 7.1 Incorporation of environmental externalities in the United States of America.- 7.2 A comparison of methods used by regulators to account for external costs.- 7.3 State regulatory responses to the threat of global warming.- 7.4 A regulator’s perspective on environmental externalities.- 7.5 California’s experience with including environmental values in electricity planning.- 7.6 New York State’s environmental costing research program in context.- 7.7 American public opinion regarding energy and the environment, 1977–1989.- 7.8 The energy policy of the Saarland: A pragmatic energy policy in a global context confronted with uncertainty concerning the external costs of energy.- 7.9 A regional strategy for energy efficiency — With special reference to the co-operation between Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein.- 7.10 “External effects — A complete approach”, the new Prognos study on the external effects of energy procurement.- 7.11 Scientific report — A case of emergency.- 8. Participants of the workshop.

O autorze

Quantified and monetized environmental costs of energy have been receiving substantial attention since 1988. The pressing environmental problems from acid rain through global warming to nuclear accidents have lead to an increasing willingness to include such costs in energy planning and pricing. The book, reporting on the first international workshop on this matter, gives a comprehensive picture of the latest research in the filed and the different approaches to the practical implementation of these results.