A Societal Life Cycle Costing of Energy Production: The Implications of Environmental Externalities

Abstract

Alberta's electricity market is deregulated; consequently, it does not recognize the benefits of renewables. This research applied a novel societal life cycle costing approach to estimate the economic values of environmental damages to society that result from coal and biomass fired electricity generation. Although coal fuel is cheaper to produce electricity, yet its societal life cycle costing (LCC) is significantly higher than bioenergy systems. Mainstreaming of environmental externalities creates market advantages for low carbon energy sources. Coal power plants cause Alberta to lose at least $117.8 billion per annum due to externalities. Ending electricity from coal with wood pellet can save 53.7 billion USD per year. The societal life cycle cost per year of coal power plants in Alberta represents 15.8% of the province's GDP and 343.7% of the total expenditure on health. The transformative potential presented by carbon pricing toward a cleaner future is limited. Externalities for health and ecosystems should also be priced and included in the retail price of electricity.

Life Cycle Cost Assessment of Electric Vehicles: A Review and Bibliometric Analysis

“…The LCC of the EVs was divided into Societal and Consumer categories. The societal LCC, which is the totality of the cost of environmental externality and the economic impact, is lower than the consumer LCC which measures the economic impacts from the EV's perspective [50]. The high cost of the EVs was attributed to the cost of the batteries which could be attributed to low patronage of EVs in Singapore, as EVs currently made up 0.2% of the total car population as of 2019.…”