Environment

The human economy resides within the environment, and as part of the human economy, the electricity system interacts with the environment in many ways. Environmental externalities are the indirect costs that electricity generation, delivery, and consumption place on the environment, but are not included in the consumer price of electricity. The electricity infrastructure takes up land, withdraws and consumes water, and emits air pollution. One environmental cost from electricity generation is damage from global warming caused by carbon dioxide emissions from coal, natural gas, and oil-fired power plants.

Related Energy Institute Publications

photo collage from cover of white paper, showing power plants and light bulbs

EPA’s Valuation of Environmental Externalities from Electricity Production

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photo collage from cover of white paper, showing wind turbines, cooling tower and coal power plant

New U.S. Power Costs: by County, with Environmental Externalities

Download a PDF of the full white paper.

Read a related blog post at IEEE Spectrum

Journal Publication:
Rhodes, Joshua D., King, Carey, Gülen, Gürcan, Olmstead, Sheila M., Dyer, James S., Hebner, Robert E., Beach, Fred C., Edgar, Thomas F., Webber, Michael E.. “A geographically resolved method to estimate levelized power plant costs with environmental externalities,” Energy Policy, 2017, 102 (March 2017), 491-499, doi: 10.1016/j.enpol.2016.12.025. View paper free online here or download PDF.