Estimating Externalities of Natural Gas Fuel Cycles, Report 4
This report describes methods for estimating the external costs (and possibly benefits) to human health and the environment that result from natural gas fuel cycles. Although the concept of externalities is far from simple or precise, it generally refers to effects on individuals' well being, that result from a production or market activity in which the individuals do not participate, or are not fully compensated. In the past two years, the methodological approach that this report describes has quickly become a worldwide standard for estimating externalities of fuel cycles. The approach is generally applicable to any fuel cycle in which a resource, such as coal, hydro, or biomass, is used to generate electric power. This particular report focuses on the production activities, pollution, and impacts when natural gas is used to generate electric power. In the 1990s, natural gas technologies have become, in many countries, the least expensive to build and operate. The scope of this report is on how to estimate the value of externalities--where value is defined as individuals' willingness to pay for beneficial effects, or to avoid undesirable ones. This report is about the methodologies to estimate these externalities, not about how to internalize them through regulations or other public policies. Notwithstanding this limit in scope, consideration of externalities can not be done without considering regulatory, insurance, and other considerations because these institutional factors affect whether costs (and benefits) are in fact external, or whether they are already somehow internalized within the electric power market. Although this report considers such factors to some extent, much analysis yet remains to assess the extent to which estimated costs are indeed external. This report is one of a series of reports on estimating the externalities of fuel cycles. The other reports are on the coal, oil, biomass, hydro, and nuclear fuel cycles, and on general methodology.
- Research Organization:
- Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (US)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC05-84OR21400
- OSTI ID:
- 757382
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: PBD: 1 Jan 1998
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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