The Social Cost of Electricity

This book reports and rationalizes the state-of-the-art concerning the social costs of electricity generation. Social costs are assessed by adding to the private generation costs, the external costs associated with damages to human health, the environment, crops, materials, and those related to the consequences of climate change. The authors consider the evolution of these costs up to 2030 for major electricity generating technologies and, using these estimates, evaluate policy options for external cost internalization, providing quantitative scenarios by country and primary fuel for 2010, 2020 and 2030. While mainly focusing on European countries, the book also examines the situation in key emerging economies such as China, India, Brazil and Turkey.