Follow up of the EC/US study on the external costs of fuel cycles

Objective

An internationally agreed methodology will be made available, for evaluating environmental costs of all major electricity generating fuel cycles in Europe.

An accounting system for external costs of all major electricity generating fuel cycles in Europe will be developed, and additional research requirements will be identified.

The project successfully developed a 'bottom-up' methodology for the evaluation of the external costs of fuel costs and demonstrated its application to the coal and nuclear fuel cycles. However, the work identified the high degree of uncertainty existing in a number of areas and several gaps in the available data. Particular ideas identified for further work were the evaluation of the impacts of global warming, the impacts of air pollutants on health, the valuation of mortality and the impacts arising from nuclear accidents. The results also showed that, due to the regional nature of a number of the important impacts, it is necessary to extend the analysis to a geographical area up to 1000km from the source.
Each important category of damage will be studied separately. The effects of incremental fuel cycle investment will be assessed to derive marginal external costs consistent with the requirements of energy models. Expert reviews will be undertaken for each stage of the impact pathway: technologies, burdens, impacts and valuation.
New fuel cycles will initially be developed for a single reference environment. Real reference environments will be used to permit investigation of geographical variations in environmental external costs. Evaluative studies will be undertaken by a single group of economists to ensure consistency.
The resulting accounting framework will be incorporated in a data base system.

Fields of science

• social sciences › sociology › demography › mortality
• engineering and technology › environmental engineering › energy and fuels › fossil energy › coal
• engineering and technology › environmental engineering › air pollution engineering

Programme(s)

• FP3-JOULE 2 - Specific research and technological development programme (EEC) in the field of non-nuclear energy, 1990-1994

Topic(s)

• 0102 - Development of new methods

Call for proposal

Data not available

Funding Scheme

CSC - Cost-sharing contracts

Coordinator

United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority

Address

353,harwell
OX11 0RA Didcot - Oxfordshire
United Kingdom

Participants (5)

CENTRE D'ETUDES SUR L'EVALUATION DE LA PROTECTION DANS LE DOMAINE NUCLEAIRE

France

Address

Route Du Panorama 18
92263 Fontenay Aux Roses

COHERENCE S.P.R.L.

Belgium

Address

2 A,cour Du Cramignon 2 A
1348 Louvain-la-neuve

Electricité de France (EDF)

France

Address

26 Rue D La Baume
75008 Paris

METROECONOMICA LTD

United Kingdom

Address

108,little Newport Street 12/13, 3rd Floor
WC2H 7JJ London

UNIVERSITAET STUTTGART

Germany

Address

Hessbruehlstrasse, 49 A
70565 Stuttgart