The Damage To Our Health From Air Pollution
(Coal isn't so cheap to burn after all, is it?)
(Coal isn't so cheap to burn after all, is it?)
1) Coal-fired electrical generation facilities are a major source of air pollution, which have health consequences for us all. Here are numbers from the Ontario Medical Association in a 2005 study, the most recent I can find. The total costs are from the OMA report page 7, and the 20% calculations are my own based on the summary information in "Air Pollution Sources In Ontario" from Environment Canada, where I averaged the two figures of 25% of SO2 emissions and 15% of Ontario’s NOx emissions to get my figure of 20%. The full report with the source data for the the Environment Canada summary listed above is actually an Ontario Ministry of the Environment document here.
Please note that as of this writing, November 2009, Ontario's coal consumption is way down, largely due to the economic meltdown causing reduced energy consumption for businesses.
Please note that as of this writing, November 2009, Ontario's coal consumption is way down, largely due to the economic meltdown causing reduced energy consumption for businesses.
Proponents for coal ask "Why should we pay more for other forms of energy, when coal is so cheap and abundent?" The answers are simple:
It should be noted, that there is substantial air pollution in Ontario coming from US coal-fired power plants, particularly those built before the U.S.1970 Clean Air Act. The Ontario government was instigating legal action against those polluters in 2005 and I have not had time to search for the outcome of that action. More information can be found on this in a report by the Toronto Medical Officer of Health in a March 2005 report.
2) Coal-fired electrical generation facilities are the leading source of mercury, one of the most toxic substances to humans and other animals.
(See page 2 of the report linked to here). Have you wondered why the fish consumption advisories due to mercury contamination come from? Now
you know.
3) Coal-fired electrical generation facilities are a major source of greenhouse gases.
But this is just part of the answer to the arguement that I often hear that "renewable energy is just too expensive... we can't afford it". To these people, I say, "ok, don't believe me, look at what Moodys came up with in their May 2008 report called "New Nuclear Generating Capacity: Potential Credit Implications for U.S. Investor Owned Utilities". They estimated the cost of nuclear and coal to be more than wind or even solar power!
Background to the chart below:
Nuclear power does not exist in a vacuum. It is one of several sources of electric power, and competes with other fossil-fueled generation (such as coal), other renewables (such as wind and solar) and other demand-side technologies (designed to reduce volume). In choosing to build a nuclear plant, a utility is making a long-term bet on a technology that has locked in a design (currently being reviewed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission) and where construction costs are rising rapidly (primarily associated with labor and commodities). As a result, market and technology risks might emerge that position a new nuclear plant as uneconomic over the course of construction. These developments, in turn, could put a significant amount of pressure on legislators and regulators to protect rate-payers from incorporating the full cost of a new nuclear plant into rates at the expense of a less costly alternative, even if the alternative is developed (or materializes) in the future.
For illustrative purposes only, Moody’s made several simplifying assumptions regarding the all-in costs associated with several competing generation alternatives. In the table below, we assume each technology builds a 1,000 MW plant, and we incorporate the capital cost, capitalization, depreciation lives and fixed and variable expense assumptions and solve for the average revenue per MW-hour, targeting a 10% ROE (for each technology).
2) Coal-fired electrical generation facilities are the leading source of mercury, one of the most toxic substances to humans and other animals.
(See page 2 of the report linked to here). Have you wondered why the fish consumption advisories due to mercury contamination come from? Now
you know.
3) Coal-fired electrical generation facilities are a major source of greenhouse gases.
But this is just part of the answer to the arguement that I often hear that "renewable energy is just too expensive... we can't afford it". To these people, I say, "ok, don't believe me, look at what Moodys came up with in their May 2008 report called "New Nuclear Generating Capacity: Potential Credit Implications for U.S. Investor Owned Utilities". They estimated the cost of nuclear and coal to be more than wind or even solar power!
Background to the chart below:
Nuclear power does not exist in a vacuum. It is one of several sources of electric power, and competes with other fossil-fueled generation (such as coal), other renewables (such as wind and solar) and other demand-side technologies (designed to reduce volume). In choosing to build a nuclear plant, a utility is making a long-term bet on a technology that has locked in a design (currently being reviewed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission) and where construction costs are rising rapidly (primarily associated with labor and commodities). As a result, market and technology risks might emerge that position a new nuclear plant as uneconomic over the course of construction. These developments, in turn, could put a significant amount of pressure on legislators and regulators to protect rate-payers from incorporating the full cost of a new nuclear plant into rates at the expense of a less costly alternative, even if the alternative is developed (or materializes) in the future.
For illustrative purposes only, Moody’s made several simplifying assumptions regarding the all-in costs associated with several competing generation alternatives. In the table below, we assume each technology builds a 1,000 MW plant, and we incorporate the capital cost, capitalization, depreciation lives and fixed and variable expense assumptions and solve for the average revenue per MW-hour, targeting a 10% ROE (for each technology).
Source: Page 15 of http://massimobray.italianieuropei.it/080527MoodysNewNukeGenCapacity.pdf
For those who say that renewable energy generation will cause electricity prices to rise, look at this from the same report:
