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(updated June 2010)
There are three main areas where, broadly speaking, subsidies or other support for energy may apply: government R&D for particular technologies, subsidies for power generation per unit of production (or conceivably per unit of capacity), and the allowance of external costs which are either paid by the community at large or picked up later by governments.
Energy R&D
There has been a lot of government-financed energy research and development (R&D) in most developed countries. This has been driven by concern about energy security, as well as by the need to address environmental problems and social concerns. Reliable and affordable energy supplies are vital to any economy, while energy shortages or the threat of such have political and economic consequences. Therefore as concerns have evolved from oil shocks to climate change, each country's energy provision and infrastructure needs restructuring accordingly.
Government R&D expenditure on energy tends to be focused on long-term development of new technologies, with the aim of bringing them to commercialisation, while private R&D is mostly on the further development of existing and operational technologies. While there are notable exceptions both ways, there is a strong disincentive for industry working in a highly competitive market and needing to justify a return on capital to shareholders to undertake long-term, high risk R&D. This is because after all their investment they will still be selling kilowatt hours of electricity or another essentially undifferentiated product in a competitive and very price-sensitive marketplace.
In recent years, some controversy has surrounded the question of the relative levels of R&D expenditure on nuclear energy and on new renewables (essentially technologies to harness wind and solar energy). Unfortunately, IEA data available for the first edition of this paper is no longer available, hence some of the following is dated.
Total Energy R&D
Total: Japan
Total: excluding Japan
The above table and graph are from the OECD International Energy Agency's database (IEA, 2001 & 2006) regarding government expenditure in the 26 IEA member countries. The database does not include information about private companies' expenditure, nor funds spent by non-IEA countries, such as China, Russia or India.
The total amount of energy R&D expenditure by governments of IEA countries rose in response to the oil price shocks of the early 1970s and then fell away as associated concerns abated, with the conspicuous exception of Japan. Private R&D investment has apparently followed the same pattern outside Japan.
Nuclear energy R&D vs Renewables and other sources
Throughout the period, the expenditure on nuclear fission dominated the overall figures, though falling from 64 per cent of the total in 1975 to 33 per cent in 2005. However, Table 2 shows that in most IEA countries (apart from Japan), government R&D expenditure on nuclear fission fell significantly through the 1990s, to trivial levels - in fact below that spent on renewables, which has averaged about US$ 700 million per year for the last two decades but is now rising.
IEA data shows R&D on nuclear fission peaking around 1980 and after 1985 declining steadily to less than half that level. Since 1990 Japan alone has been responsible for some two thirds of IEA R&D expenditure on nuclear fission, with France accounting for most of the remainder. If the French and Japanese figures are excluded, fission R&D expenditure in the rest of the IEA countries totalled US$ 308 million in 2000.
The extent of expenditure on renewables significantly outweighing that on nuclear fission everywhere except France and Japan would be unremarkable if the potential contribution from each were similar. In fact the potential scope for renewables contributing to electricity supply is very much less because the sources, particularly solar and wind, are diffuse, intermittent and unreliable. Their diffuse nature is simply a technical problem. But for intermittent and essentially opportunistic supply of wind- or solar-generated electricity to a grid system, the maximum potential appears to be about 20% of the total, and normally less, whereas that from nuclear energy is around 90%.
Partly as a result of the R&D expenditure, nuclear power now provides 16% of world electricity (more in those countries foremost in the R&D) - 2600 billion kWh per year, compared with a tiny fraction of that for non-hydro renewables. Furthermore the scope for increasing the renewable contribution is not considered by the power producers to be very great.
The Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) is Japan's major integrated nuclear R&D organization, with 4400 employees at ten facilities and annual budget of 161 billion yen (US$ 1.7 billion).
A 2008 study by Management Information Services Inc looked at US energy more widely than just electricity, and took in all federal incentives, not simply R&D, from 1950 to 2006. Some $726 billion was identified (2006 dollars). Its conclusions included:
Focusing on R&D:
Recent US Department of Energy figures show the renewables total in the US R&D budget as $505 million in FY2007 and energy efficiency $676 million, compared with nuclear power at $300 million (double the 2003 level) and fossil fuels at $397 million. Nuclear fusion is additional at $319 million.
Other US DOE R&D data is as follows (2007 $ million)
Years
1988-2007
6271
7593
13,500
5737
FY 2007
444
470
946
414
EIA 2008
In FY 2007, relating the support to actual energy produced, the figures are: wind 2.34 c/kWh, "clean coal" 2.98 c/kWh, gas, coal 0.044 c/kWh, nuclear 0.16 c/kWh.
Outside the IEA, Russia, India and China have substantial nuclear fission programs and as the European Union also funds an amount of fission R&D, the worldwide totals for fission will be rather higher than the figure above. Nonetheless, given that the bulk of government-sponsored R&D into nuclear fission focuses on waste management and other fuel cycle back-end processes, it is clear that little is being spent at present by governments on new reactor designs.
Subsidies for renewable energy sources
In addition to front-end R&D expenditure there are ongoing operational subsidies for various forms and sources of energy. With government-controlled utilities, or regulated markets such as in the USA until the mid 1990s, utility costs could simply be passed on to the consumers, who effectively supplied a subsidy relative to cheaper alternatives. With deregulated and competitive markets this had to change.
In an open market, government policies to support particular generation options such as renewables normally give rise to explicit direct subsidies along with other instruments such as feed-in tariffs, quota obligations and energy tax exemptions.
A feed-in tariff (FIT) obliges energy retailers to buy any electricity produced from renewable sources and to do so at a fixed price, usually over a fixed period, the price being significantly greater than that paid for power from mainstream sources. The rates usually vary for different sources, eg being greater for solar or offshore wind. In this case they may be called Advanced Renewable Tariffs (ART), differentiating by technology and perhaps project size. There is usually no amount or proportion specified, though a cap or quota on how much needs to be bought overall or from particular sources may be applied.
Feed-in tariffs (FIT) are now common in Europe, Canada, China and Israel and imminent in several Australian states, total 41 countries or provinces.
Europe
In the EU, feed-in tariffs are widespread (in 18 of 25 EU countries as of 2007). European Environment Agency figures in 2004 gave indicative estimates of total energy subsidies in the EU-15 for 2001: solid fuel (coal) EUR 13.0, oil & gas EUR 8.7, nuclear EUR 2.2, renewables EUR 5.3 billion.
In the UK, a February 2010 report from Ofgem showed that subsidies for renewables, notably the Renewables Obligation, had risen from £7 in 2007 to £13.50 per year on the average household electricity bill, and in 2008-09 totalled £1.04 billion.
The UK Renewables Obligation (RO) requires retailers each to buy a certain proportion of the electricity they supply from renewable sources with certificates at whatever price they can, or to pay a penalty. In the UK proportion was 9.1% and the default buy-out price (or "fine") was 3.576 p/kWh in 2008-09. The price of the electricity from renewable sources is left to the market. The amount required to be bought can be adjusted annually, as in UK towards 15.4% by 2015 (2006-07 level was 6.7%, 2007-08 was 7.9%). In 2006-07 in England and Wales 12.87 billion kWh of renewable electricity was supplied and £218 million in fines was paid, representing a shortfall of 6.55 billion kWh. (The actual UK system is more complex than outlined, because Ofgem issues to generators certificates which can be traded, and the price of these reflects the fact that fines are distributed to retailers or others in proportion to certificates they hold.)
Due to the Renewables Obligation the UK subsidy on onshore wind generation is the highest in the EU. Under the Energy Act 2008 the UK system is being modified from 2009 to provide greater incentive to use offshore wind, biomass and emerging technologies. Ofgem estimates that in the course of achieving 30% of supply from renewables the amended Renewables Obligation for large-scale projects is predicted to cost consumers £6 billion per year by 2020, and the new feed-in tariff* for schemes up to 5 MWe will cost them £7.9 billion per year by 2030, on the basis of 5.2 pence/kWh for RO and 9.3 p/kWh for feed-in tariff. Meanwhile it is seen by the Renewable Energy Foundation to be "both counterproductive and very poor value for money".
* From April 2010 householders and communities who install low carbon electricity technology such as solar photovoltaic (PV) panels and wind turbines up to 5 megawatts will be paid for the electricity they generate, even if they use it themselves. The level of payment depends on the technology and is linked to inflation.Electricity from small wind turbines is paid 34 p/kWh, that from solar PV 41 p/kWh. They will get a further payment for any electricity they feed into the grid.
The UK also has a Climate Change Levy of 0.43 p/kWh on non-renewable sources (at present including nuclear energy, despite its lack of greenhouse gas emissions), which corresponds to a further subsidy.
In Germany the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG), revised in 2004 and 2007, governs subsidies. The Federal Ministry's July 2007 progress report on this said that in 2006, the costs to the electricity consumer resulting from the differential costs of electricity covered by the EEG in 2006 amounted to EUR 3.2 billion plus EUR 0.1 billion for the provision of energy balancing. Germany applies a mixture of incentives for renewables, but principally relies on feed-in tariffs which are guaranteed for up to 20 years.
The average feed-in tariff apart from solar PV is 8.5 c/kWh, or 16.4 cents including solar PV in 2006 (solar PV being up to 49 cents). Wind provides nearly half of the renewable input and feed-in tariffs for new plants are generally 8.2 c/kWh on land and 9.1 c offshore. The combined subsidy from consumers and government totals some EUR 5 billion per year - for 7% of its electricity from wind and solar. Early in 2010 Germany announced a 15% cut in the solar feed-in tariff, after adding nearly 3000 MWe solar in 2009, and reportedly paying over $15 billion for solar power. A public backlash is reported due to much of the economic benefit going to foreign solar module manufacturers.
France cut subsidies for solar PV input to the grid by 25% early in 2010, from $0.80 set in 2006 to $0.61 c/kWh.
Denmark has a wide range of incentives for renewables and particularly wind energy. In 2000 it produced 4 TWh (out of 36 TWh gross total, about 11%) thus, and is aiming at 15%. Its utility buy-back rates for privately-generated wind electricity in 1999 averaged DKr 0.60/kWh, including a DKr 0.27/kWh subsidy funded by carbon tax (now US$ 6.8 cents & 3.2 cents respectively). However, there is a further economic cost borne by power utilities and customers. When there is a drop in wind, back-up power is bought from the Nordic power pool at the going rate. Similarly, any surplus (subsidised) wind power is sold to the pool. The net effect of this is growing losses as wind capacity expands. Official estimates put the expected losses at DKr 1.5 billion per year, others reckon more than double this.
Sweden subsidises renewables (principally large-scale hydro) by a tax on nuclear capacity, which (late in 2001) works out at EUR 0.32 cents/kWh. It also has a quota and certificate scheme which gives a price of 6.85 c/kWh on renewables apart from solar PV.
Italy has a quota and certificate scheme with average price 12.53 c/kWh for renewables apart from solar PV, 17.27 cents including solar PV, in 2006.
In Norway the government subsidises wind energy with a 25% investment grant and then production support per kWh, the total coming to NOK 0.12/kWh, against a spot price of around NOK 0.18/kWh (US$ 1.3 cents & 2 cents respectively).
Spain has a fixed tariff of EUR 6.28 c/kWh for wind energy or a market-related tariff plus an environmental premium of 2.9 c/kWh (in 2002). The tariffs for renewables are adjusted annually to be 80-90% of the predicted retail electricity price.
Greece has a feed-in tariff of 6.1-7.5 c/kWh, whereas the Netherlands relies on exemption from energy taxes to encourage renewables.
The Czech Republic has a mandated feed-in tariff for solar power of 12 koruna ($0.63) per kWh, about ten times the cost of power generated by CEZ. This is threatening grid stability and is likely to be reduced for new projects.
Latvia has feed-in tariffs of EUR 9.6 to 18.2 c/kWh for wind, depending on size of generator, and 42.7 c/kWh for solar PV. Lithuania's feed-in tariff for wind is 8.7 c/kWh.
Elsewhere in EU, small-scale photovoltaic (PV) input is encouraged by high feed-in tariffs, eg 50 c/kWh in Portugal.
North America
In the USA a direct subsidy or Production Tax Credit (PTC, now about 2.1 c/kWh for wind) is available to generators of renewable power over the first ten years of a project's operation so they can sell it that much below actual cost. The subsidy is granted as credit on taxes, though following the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act (ARRA) in mid 2009, an investment tax credit of 30% may be claimed instead for wind plant placed in service before 2013 if construction begins before the end of 2010. A total of $16.8 billion had been provided in direct grants for energy efficiency and renewable energy projects under ARRA. This credit can be converted to a grant from the government. In the USA a Renewable Portfolio Standard is proposed, mandating a specified amount of renewable power from suppliers, and applying already in California and other states. The PTC is indexed to inflation.
Several US states and municipalities are looking at FITs. Vermont enacted one in 2009 and Gainesville, Florida has one in 26-32 c/kWh range.
In Ontario, Canada, under a 2009 Green Energy Act, feed-in tariffs were introduced, ranging from 11 c/kWh for landfill gas and 13 c/kWh for wind to 80.2 c/kWh for solar PV.
East Asia
In Japan, since 2009 a feed-in tariff requires utilities to buy surplus solar power produced domestically at up to JPY 48/kWh. This is being expanded to hydro, wind and geothermal power at JPY 17-20/kWh, compared with JPY 5-7 for base-load power.
In China, the Global Wind Energy Council acknowledges "the fact that wind is heavily subsidised". This is under a variety of complex measures focused on capacity rather than output, and correlates with a low average capacity factor of 16% over 2006-07, partly due to grid constraints. China's 2006 Renewable Energy Law sets out a subsidized electricity tariff structure (though no feed-in tariff), a compulsory grid connection mandate for renewable energy projects, and a rule that requires utilities to purchase all the renewable electricity produced in their service area. In addition, carbon credits awarded under the UN Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) enable foreign investors in Chinese wind projects to sell carbon credits outside the country, this being essential to project viability.
Australia
Australia's Mandated Renewable Energy Target has since 2001 required retailers each to buy a certain proportion of the electricity they supply from non-hydro renewable sources at whatever price they can, or incur a penalty by paying a shortfall charge, currently 4.2 c/kWh ($A). The original 10% target or 9500 GWh by 2010 was increased to 20% in 2009, or about 45,000 GWh in 2020, representing a major increase from non-hydro sources. The shortfall charge goes up fro 4 cents to 6.5 c/kWh. The obligation is tradeable.
Subsidies for coal
Germany provides producer subsidies to its coal industry amounting to EUR 68 per tonne for 34 Mt coal in 2000 - total EUR 2.3 billion. Since the late 1980s the domestic hard coal production price has been at least EUR 100/t above the imported cost, and subsidies reached a high of EUR 7.9 billion in 1989. By 2002 production had declined to about 25 Mt/yr and the subsidy was down to EUR 3.5 billion and a later figure quoted EUR 2.5 billion, with EUR 130 billion over previous four decades. However, the government has decided to end the subsidies by 2018, and the situation may be reviewed in 2012.
Energy taxes, and subsidies for nuclear power
Corresponding to subsidies in the other direction are taxes on particular energy sources, justified by climate change or related policies, and with low production costs providing opportunity. For instance Sweden taxes nuclear power at about EUR 0.67 cents/kWh, and Belgium is introducing a tax of 0.5 cents/kWh on nuclear. The UK has a Climate Change Levy which is a tax on energy used by business. The rate was 0.43 p/kWh but from 2006 has been indexed. Electricity from designated renewable sources is exempt from the levy, nuclear power is subject to it.
There is also occasionally a tax on excess wind production at times of low demand in Denmark and northern Germany. Nordpool requires generators to pay up to EUR 20 c/kWh for users to take excess electricity when demand is low, and in Germany the price has hit 50 c/kWh (at 5am on an October day in 2008). A similar situation arises locally in western Texas.
The USA is the only country which has offered any subsidy to nuclear power: a production tax credit of 1.8 c/kWh from the first 6000 MWe of new-generation nuclear plants in their first 8 years of operation (same as for wind power on unlimited basis). (In 2007 the USA subsidised renewables by $724 million and recorded $199 billion subsidy for nuclear power. The latter was entirely due to a change in tax rules related to decommissioning, under the 2005 Energy Policy Act.)
* using feed-in tariff
Much of the justification for subsidising renewables is the avoidance of carbon dioxide emissions, due to the need for European countries to meet Kyoto targets. The Eurelectric report thus identifies cost of carbon emissions avoided. These in 2001 ranged from EUR 7/t of avoided CO2 in Finland to EUR 64/t in Denmark, EUR 74/t in Germany and EUR 100/t in Italy. Projections for 2010 have much higher costs: EUR 55/t for Denmark, EUR 109/t for Germany and Italy, EUR 148/t for France, and EUR 155/t for Netherlands. The weighted average is EUR 88/t and that for countries with feed-in tariffs EUR 103/t.
External costs
However, the implicit subsidies where the waste products of energy use are allowed to be dumped into the biosphere are greater than these direct subsidies. The largest of them are given to fossil fuel producers. Nuclear energy has always had to cost in its own waste management and disposal (equivalent to about 5% of generation cost, with a further similar sum for decommisioning)*. Renewables only give rise to wastes in manufacturing, and while these are sometimes unpleasant they are dealt with in the same way as other manufacturing wastes.
* In the UK this has been patchy due to changing government policies, and major expenditure is now required to deal with legacy wastes arising from early nuclear power generation - effectively an external cost, albeit a historical one.
Consideration, and if possible quantification, of external costs aids life cycle analysis and technology comparison as well as cost-benefit analysis generally.
The report of ExternE, a major European study of the external costs of various fuel cycles, focusing on coal and nuclear, was released in 2001 and further figures have emerged since. The European Commission launched the project in 1991 in collaboration with the US Dept of Energy (which subsequently dropped out), and it was the first research project of its kind "to put plausible financial figures against damage resulting from different forms of electricity production for the entire EU".
The external costs are defined as those actually incurred in relation to health and the environment and quantifiable but not built into the cost of the electricity to the consumer and therefore which are borne by society at large. They include particularly the effects of air pollution on human health, crop yields and buildings, as well as occupational disease and accidents. The 2001 data excluded effects on ecosystems and the impact of global warming, but these are now included despite the high range of uncertainty in adequately quantifying and evaluating them economically.
The methodology measures emissions, their dispersion pathways and ultimate impact. Exposure-response models lead to evaluating the physical impacts in monetary terms. With nuclear energy the (low) risk of accidents is factored in along with high estimates of radiological impacts from mine tailings (since shown to be exaggerated) and carbon-14 emissions from reprocessing (waste management and decommissioning being already within the cost to the consumer).
The report shows that in clear cash terms nuclear energy incurs about one tenth of the costs of coal. Nuclear energy averages under 0.4 euro cents/kWh (0.2-0.7), less than hydro, coal is over 4.0 cents (2-10 cent averages in different countries), gas ranges 1-4 cents and only wind shows up better than nuclear, at 0.05-0.25 cents/kWh average.
The EU cost of electricity generation without these external costs averages about 4 cents/kWh. If these external costs were in fact included, the EU price of electricity from coal would double and that from gas would increase around 30%. A summary plus access to more recent work is on ExternE web site.
The report proposes two ways of incorporating external costs: taxing the costs or subsidising alternatives. Due to the difficulty of taxing in an EU context, subsidy is favoured. EC guidelines published in February 2001 encourage members states to subsidise "new plants producing renewable energy ... on the basis of external costs avoided", up to 5 c/kWh. However, this provision does not extend to nuclear power, despite the comparable external costs avoided. EU member countries have pledged to have renewables (including hydro) provide 12% of total energy and 22% of electricity by 2010, a target which appears unlikely to be met. The case for extending the subsidy to nuclear energy is obvious, particularly if climate change is to be taken seriously.
In that connection it is interesting to note the significant state subsidies to the coal industry in the EU, reported to total EUR 6874 million or EUR 190 per tonne in 2000. This includes operating aid, 'aid for reduction of activity', and other. In Germany alone, politically committed to phasing out nuclear energy and meanwhile finding new ways to tax it, EUR 4598 million was spent in subsidies to coal in 2000! Considerable effort was being given to finding ways to extend these subsidies beyond mid 2002.
Another European treatment of production and external costs, specifically of power generation in Switzerland (the GaBE Project), has been done by the Paul Scherrer Institut and shows that the damage costs from fossil fuels are 10 to 350% of the production costs, while those for nuclear are very small. A summary is accessible on the web, and the figure below is from it:
The twin bars represent the range of values for plants operating in Switzerland (Rp = cents SFR)
An earlier European study (Krewitt et al, 1999) quantified environmental damage costs from fossil fuel electricity generation in the EU for 1990 as US$ 70 billion, about 1% of GDP. This included impacts on human health, building materials and crop production, but not global warming.
The EC is undertaking a follow-on study to ExternE called NewExt to examine particular environmental costs and risks, mostly associated with fossil fuels.
In October 2009 a US National Research Council report commissioned by Congress quantified and analysed a total of $120 billion in "hidden" external costs of energy production in the USA in 2005. The figures reflect mainly health damage and exclude the effects of climate change. Electricity generation accounted for more than half, practically all being from coal.
The external cost of damages, primarily caused from sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and particulate matter emissions from burning coal, were $62 billion, or 3.2 cents per kWh of electricity produced from it. The report expects damages from coal to fall to 1.7 c/kWh by 2030. Electricity produced from natural gas produced $0.74 billion in damages (0.16 c/kWh) in 2005, primarily from air pollution. For nuclear the figure was about 0.02 c/kWh. Motor vehicles produced $56 billion in health and other non-climate damages, considering the full life cycle of vehicles - only one third was from their operation. Electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles resulted in higher non-climate damages than other technologies, due to reliance on fossil fuels for the electricity. Energy used to create the batteries and electric motors adds 20% of the manufacturing portion of life-cycle damages.
Public health
Consideration of external costs leads to the conclusion that the public health benefits associated with reducing greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel burning could be the strongest reason for pursuing them. Considering four cities - New York, Mexico, Santiago and Sao Paulo - with total 45 million people, a paper in Science presents calculations showing that some 64,000 deaths would be avoided in the two decades to 2020 by reducing fossil fuel combustion in line with greenhouse abatement targets. This is consistent with a 1995 WHO estimate of 460,000 avoidable deaths annually from suspended particulates, largely due to outdoor urban exposure.
The World Health Organisation in 1997 presented two estimates, of 2.7 or 3 million deaths occurring each year as a result of air pollution. In the latter estimate: 2.8 million deaths were due to indoor exposures and 200,000 to outdoor exposure. The lower estimate comprised 1.85 million deaths from rural indoor pollution, 363,000 from urban indoor pollution and 511,000 from urban ambient pollution. The WHO report points out that these totals are about 6% of all deaths, and the uncertainty of the estimates means that the range should be taken as 1.4 to 6 million deaths annually attributable to air pollution.
Life cycle CO2 emissions
Turning to carbon dioxide, if all energy inputs are assumed to be from coal-fired plants, at about one kilogram of carbon dioxide per kWh, it is possible to derive a greenhouse contribution from the energy input percentage of output. However, For Sweden's Forsmark as many energy inputs are not fossil fuel, its life cycle analysis (2002 data) give it the very low CO2 emission figure of 3.1 g/kWh.
In France, despite energy-inefficient enrichment plants which are run by nuclear power, the greenhouse contribution from any nuclear reactor using French-enriched uranium is similar to a reactor elsewhere using centrifuge-enriched uranium -- less than 20 g/kWh overall.
Figures published in 2006 for Japan show 13 g/kWh, with prospects of this halving in future.
Older figures published from Japan's Central Research Institute of the Electric Power Industry give life cycle carbon dioxide emission figures for various generation technologies. Swedish utility Vattenfall (1999) published a popular account of life cycle studies based on the previous few years experience and its certified Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) for Forsmark and Ringhals nuclear power stations, and a similar exercise was undertaken in Finland by Kivisto et al. The sets of data compare as follows:
The Japanese gas figures include shipping LNG from overseas, and the nuclear figure is for boiling water reactors, with enrichment 70% in USA, 30% France & Japan, and one third of the fuel to be MOX. The Finnish nuclear figures are for centrifuge and diffusion enrichment respectively.
Energy-related accidents
A November 1998 study from the Paul Scherrer Institut in Switzerland, more recently available in English, examines other aspects of external costs. The 400-page report was commissioned by the Swiss Federal Office of Energy, and draws on data from 4290 energy-related accidents, 1943 of them classified as severe, and compares different energy sources. It considers over 15,000 fatalities related to oil, over 8000 related to coal and 5000 from hydro - in total, about seven World Trade Centres. It points out that Full Cost Accounting, including both internal and external costs, is increasingly used for electric utility planning, though not on any standard basis, and not without considerable practical difficulty in assigning costs. Also it is notable that for any specific energy chain, different parts are often in different countries.
Considering only deaths and comparing them per Terawatt-year, coal has 342, hydro 883, gas 85 and nuclear power only 8 (/TWe.yr). (Nuclear power delivers some 2500 TWh per year, hence these 8 deaths would be spread over 3.5 years in the course of providing 16% of the world's electricity, whereas coal's 342 deaths can be expected every 19 months for slightly more than twice the amount of electricity.) In terms of number of immediate deaths per event from 1969 to 1996, hydro stands out with about 550 compared with coal at about 40.
In the period from 1975, typically about 30 energy-related accidents with at least five fatalities occurred every year, including 1-5 with over 100 fatalities.
The new report updates and confirms an earlier study covering 1970-92.
The adoption of any policies or conventions to take account of external costs of generating electricity will have a very beneficial effect on the prospects for any strong resurgence in the role of nuclear energy.
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