extent and severity of these welfare effects and develops a set of priority effects that require more in-depth analysis. Specifically excluded from this category are effects on health and safety, natural biological systems, resource depletion (including direct land and water use), and social and economic dislocations. Conditions following accidents were also not included in this study. The sequence[116] for determining the environmental welfare effects of each energy technology begins with an examination of the various activities involved in each fuel cycle, starting with the extraction of the resource and extending to the delivery of electricity to a utility grid. These activities result in environmental impacts such as noise and air and water pollution. In turn, the environmental impacts could result in welfare effects such as property damage, climatic change, interference with other activities, and aesthetic disturbances. This activity-impact-effect chain is illustrated in Fig. 4.33. The structure is used for categorizing the impacts and effects of the various activities in the fuel cycle. The physical environmental impacts and their effects caused by the various activities associated with selected coal, nuclear, and solar technologies are listed in Tables 4.26-4.32. 4.4.2 Comparative Impacts The welfare effect of each energy-related activity is examined in the context of the additional burden imposed on a community by that activity. Typical facility sizes — for a mine, processing plant, or power plant — are used whenever possible as a basis for determining local welfare effects (the assumed facility sizes represent current opinion regarding the most likely unit sizes to be constructed in the near future). The welfare effects are not scaled to a common metric, such as cost or impact per 1,000 MW of electrical capacity. Use of a common metric tends to obscure information because of the need to introduce various assumptions in converting impacts to a single unit of measure. The approach used in this assessment takes into account the fact that small, dispersed power plants often have smaller local welfare effects than would a large centralized facility, even though the quantity of emissions per megawatt of electricity generated may be smaller for the larger facility and the larger facility could more easily be sited in an isolated area. At the same time, it is recognized that many minor impacts may have a cumulative impact that could equal or exceed a major impact from a single, large facility. Other assumptions that underlie this analysis are that all activities use advanced pollution control technology representative of newer facilities and that facilities operate routinely (that is, without accidents). The environmental welfare impact of each activity was quantified by the magnitude of some physical effect (e.g., noise level), and its capacity to be mitigated was evaluated. It is thought that this approach provides a qualitative judgment that reflects the more recent trends in emissions and anticipated effects. Direct comparison between technologies tends to obscure the welfare issues associated with each energy technology and was therefore avoided.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTU5NjU0Mg==