Social and Environmental Costs of Energy Systems

Abstract

I 7 0 0 0 6 -3-(e) the methodologies that can be used to arrive at the values of these indices.A classification of impacts and costs based on: categories (a) through (c) is given in Table 1.In the remainder of this section, we elaborate on the character of these impacts and costs.Indices, criteria, and methodologies are taken up later. Death and DiseaseOf all environmental impacts and social costs of energy production and use, it might be expected that none wouldobe easier to quantify than human mortality.Certainly, one would think that statistics should be easily available and.compilable, and that such a dramatic effect as death would command significant attention.This expectation is only partly correct.Death from occasional catastrophic accidents or from more frequent small accidents can be quantified rather well, and, where there is adequate operating experience, predicted.Unfortunately, this is not the whole story.When the 'total deaths' associated with or attributed to some technology must be quantified, the task is not nearly as easy, because it is necessary to under~ stand such effects as long-delayed deaths from earlier exposure to toxic substances and life-shortening by aggravation of existing morbidity.This discussion points up one of the most important problems in analysis of environmental impacts: if mortality is difficult to quantify, how can any other phenomena which are less dramatic and less easily measured be understood quantitatively?For example, human illness (morbidity) is unarguably more difficult to quantify th~m mortality,