Commercial Climate 22 February 2011.
Through incorporating externalities into their lifecycle analysis, Harvard researchers have discovered the true extent of subsidies to coal in the United States: $345 billion.
This implies a real cost of electricity production by coal-fired power plants of $0.178 per kwh – several times the accepted and oft-quoted cost of electricity, thereby significantly eroding the coal industry argument that coal is the cheap baseload power option.
The study, ‘Full Cost Accounting for the Lifecycle of Coal’, attempts to include a number of environmental and social costs, including scenarios for social costs of greenhouse gas emissions.
The researchers behind the study state that they have omitted many social and environmental costs, despite their efforts….
(Editorial note: It would be interesting to establish the size of the South African coal and nuclear subsidies and how the full life-cycle costs, including the measurable externalities, affect the South African cost of electricity.)
