External environmental costs of electricity generation using a life cycle approach: A case study of Spain

Electricity generation produces impacts on the natural and human environment that need to be measured and properly managed. This investigation describes the potential of integrating LCA with monetary valuation to quantify the magnitude of these impacts in economic terms (€). Fourteen power generation technologies (5 fossil, 8 renewable and nuclear, based in Spain) were evaluated using LCA on 18 midpoint and 3 endpoint categories, as listed in ReCiPe2016. The results showed very high external costs in fossil technologies (from 435 to 636 €/MWh for coal-based to 109–154 €/MWh for natural gas) and significantly lower for renewables (5–77 €/MWh) and nuclear (3.3 €/MWh), with higher values corresponding to biomass and lowest to wind power and nuclear. External costs from fossil technologies were dominated by damage to human health caused by climate change, particulate emissions and exhaustion of fossil resources generated during the operation stage. External costs from renewables were dominated by the same categories plus exhaustion of mineral resources, in this case produced during the extraction of raw materials stage. These results demonstrate the profound unsustainability of fossil, whose external costs largely exceed wholesale market prices.