MANHAZ

1. MANHAZ Comparative assessment of health effects and external costs due to various power sources and generation technologies. A. Strupczewski Institute of Atomic Energy A.Strupczewski@cyf.gov.pl

2. Plan of the lecture • Principle of Life Cycle Assessment of health effects • Levels of atmospheric pollution – limits and reality • Emissions of nuclear industry – effective reductions • Health effects of radiation from nuclear facilities • Renewable energy sources – materials and energy needs • Backup energy needs • Pollutant emissions in LCA for various fuel sources • Greenhouse gas emissions • Health effecs due to nuclear power cycle • Health effects due to other energy sources • Comparisons of levels and health effects for radiation and SO2 • Hazards due to wastes - radioactive and chemical • Total health effects of various energy sources

3. Compare all health and ecological damages due to various electricity sources To make a justified decision concerning further development of energy sources, we must be aware of full balance of health and ecological damages connected with electricity production. According to ISO standard “Ecological balance includes environmental effects and potential effects due to the production of a product in a full life cycle, from the cradle to the grave, starting with raw materials, through equipment production and product utilization till the plant decommissioning and site rehabilitation. The effects include influence on natural resources, human health and ecology.” For society the optimum strategy consists in developing those energy systems, which involve the lowest total costs, no matter whether these costs are paid by the plant owner or by the society at large. The external costs due to health and environmental damages paid by the society should be added to private or production costs paid by the plant owner to gain a true picture of the price that the mankind pays for various energy sources.

4. Admissible levels of atmosphere pollution with products of organic fuel burning • The levels of admissible air pollution with products of organic fuel burning are set at values much above the natural background. For example in the USA the average annual concentrations of PM10 and SO2 are 50 and 80 g/m3, respectively. The natural background concentration of SO2 is about 1 g/m3 and from 1 to 10 g/m3, while significant health effects of PM have been found at average concentration levels of 15 g/m3 . • European Union Council established in 1999 target values of annual concentrations of pollutants as 20 g/m3 for SO2 to be met by 2005, 40 for NOx (2010) and 40 g/m3 for PM10 (2005) with decrease to 20 by 2010. Since the available data on exposures to PM10 i PM2.5 do not indicate any threshold below which no health effects would be observed, WHO proposes to use health risk coefficients, not limit values .

5. Are the air pollution limits observed? According to WHO estimates, • only 17% of city inhabitants breathe the air polluted within admissible limits, • 24% live in conditions worse than recommended • 59%, i.e. above 1.25 billion people live in conditions of inadmissible air pollution. • Even in the USA a significant part of the population lives in the regions where at least one of the air pollution indicators is exceeded. • In 1990 the number of such people was 74 millions and in 1996 – 86 millions.

6. Emission limits • Emission limits for power plants with organic fuel have been repeatedly reduced as the knowledge of air pollution effects increased and the technologies of emission control were improved. • Since 1988 the emission limits in the EU countries have been set at the level of 50 mg/Nm3 for PM10, 400 mg/Nm3 for SO2 and 650 mg/Nm3 for NOx. According to recommendation of EU Council of 2000, the limits for PM will be decreased to 30 and for NOx to 200 mg/Nm3.

7. Reductions of emissions in nuclear industry • ALARA- As Low As Reasonably Achievable : the main principle guiding the nuclear industry efforts to reduce radioactive releases • System of barriers to prevent releases both in normal operation and under accident conditions. • Nuclear power plants bear high costs to prevent releases – therefore their external costs are small. • Attention to the whole fuel cycle: not only NPP reduce their emissions, but also fuel reprocessing plants, or uran enrichment plants • The effects: reduction of emissions by the factors from 10 to 50

9. Emission reductions – French example The emissions of radioactive substances from NPPs are strictly controlled and reduced year after year. The activities released are only a small fraction of regulatory limits. In France, where the total power of NPPs with PWRs exceeds 62 GWe, the average activity of noble gases released from: • 900 MWe PWRs in 1995 was only 8 TBq/year, while the allowed release value was 575 TBq/year. • 1300 MWe PWRs only 9 TBq/year against allowed 825 TBq/year. • The released activities of halogens and aerosols were 0,11 and 0.12 against allowed 18.75 and 27,5 GBq /year for units of 900 and 1300 MWe power, correspondingly.

10. Doses due to radiation emissions • Committee Souleau evaluated the dose maximum corresponding to the admissible release levels to be 0.3 mSv/y. • The annual doses outside the plant due to all emissions were in 1992 on the average equal to 0.001 mSv, while the limit to the public at that time was 5 mSv, and to the workers 50 mSv . These values were kept also in later years. • The report for 1995 states, that releases of liquid and gaseous radioactive effluents from all plants of the nuclear fuel cycle including reprocessing plants had no measurable impact on health, with extremely low doses in the vicinity, of the order of 0.01 mSv/y, which is less than 1/200 of the background radioactivity. • For example, in the case of Flammanville NPP with 2 PWRs of 900 MWe, the dose rate due to all emissions from the NPP was in 1995 equal to 0.0003 mS/y while radiation doses received by French population due to natural background equal on the average 2.67 mSv/y.

11. Radiation loads due to nuclear fuel reprocessing plants The dose rate for the critical group of inhabitants near La Hague reprocessing plant was 0.02 mSv/y. Concern raised – 4 cases of leukemia against 1.4 expected in the period of 1978-1992 (just at the limit of statistical significance). The minister of environment and the secretary of the state for health in France created a Scientific Committee to study the question. The Committee found that the total number of leukemia cases theoretically due to exposure to nuclear radiation (LNT!) in the whole studied cohort over the period 1978-1996 was 0.835. Natural radiation background and medical exposures are the principal contributors (74% and 24%, respectively), while the routine radioactive effluents from the reprocessing plant could have contributed at the most to the total of 0.0009 cases that is 0.1% of the total. The releases from La Hague have not been the reason of any increase of leukemia frequency in the vicinity of the plant.

13. Emissions in the whole fuel cycle • In the case of organic fuel the largest emissions occur during their burning in the power plants. In developing countries the emissions are very high and even in developed countries the emissions from already built power plants are much higher than the limits for new power plants. In the case of new power plants the limits are comparatively low and further improvements are planned. Nevertheless, they are still significant. What is more, as the emission control methods are improved, the contribution of emissions in other fuel cycle stages becomes significant. This is especially visible for renewable power sources.

14. Environmental loads due to renewable energy sources • During operation of power plants with renewable energy sources such as photovoltaic cells (PV), wind or hydropower plants, there are no emissions and the environmental loads are small. • Only for biomass the emissions of pollutants are large and can involve high environmental burdens in view of low emission control efficiency and low chimney height in small power plants. • The main environmental burdens for renewable energies are due to the balance of life cycle, namely to the material and equipment production and power plant construction.

15. Material and energy needs for renewable energy sources • For PV cells large quantities of steel, bauxite, cement and other materials are needed. • Electricity needs for equipment production are also much higher than for coal or nuclear power plants [25]. E.g. PV cells need 40 times more bauxite per TWh than NPPs. • Electricity must be provided before the PV plant starts its operation. For example, for polycrystalline cells the energy needed to build the system equals about 40% of the total energy that will be produced by the system over its lifetime. • The time of monocrystalline PV plant operation needed to recover the energy provided for its construction is about 7.5 years. In the case of polycrystalline PV cells the results are about 20-30% better, but still quite high.

16. Non-monetary aspects of comparisons Due to low efficiency of PV cells in world scale the average area needed for PV plants is estimated to be 33 km2/GW, while the mass of semiconductor materials would be 110 ton/GW. Such high values suggest that the implementation of PV plants on a large scale cannot be done with the present semiconductors, and new materials must be first developed.

17. Fig. 4 Photo-Voltaic Cells (PV) are the smallest of all power generation units, but they are the largest consumers of metals per unit of energy generated over the lifetime of the plant.

18. Fig. 5 Photo-voltaic cells PVC need also the largest amount of bauxite per energy unit generated over their lifetime. And production of aluminium involves heavy loads to the environment.

19. Fig. 6 In order to build a new power plant, some energy must be supplied during its construction. The energy needed per unit energy produced over the lifetime of the plant is the highest for PV cells.

20. Fig. 7 Greenhouse emissions are the highest for fossil fuels, but the high needs for raw materials and energy at the stage of plant construction result in greenhouse emissions for PV cells being much larger than for NPP and hydropower sources.

21. Need for back-up power Further loads are due to the fact, that energy sources operating in intermittent way, such as PV cells or wind power plants, need either energy storage facilities or backup from the energy system with coal or nuclear power plants. The needs for backup power are surprisingly high. For example, the analysis of [25] has shown that for PV cells providing 2500 GWh/year the backup power needed corresponds to the system producing 22000 GWh/year. The ratio of power of PV cells plants to the conventional backup system power is even worse, and corresponds to about 70: 4000.

23. Influence of Electricity Generation Fuel Mix on LCA data German fuel mix for electricity generation Swiss fuel mix for electricity generation SO2 in mg/kWh Since this electricity is produced by the existing mix of power plants in the energy system, the corresponding environmental burdens are different in different countries (Swiss –energy mix = 61% hydro , 35% nuclear power)

25. Power plants expected over 20-30 years • Environmental loads expected in 2020-2030 in Swiss power systems are presented in the next Figure [27]. • The forecast includes all expected improvements, in particular in case of coal the shift to Pressurized Fluidized Bed Combustion (PFBC). • The data show the importance of other stages of the fuel cycle besides the power plant itself. In spite of the expected progress in emission control, the emissions for the total fuel cycle are still large. The greatest differences are seen for renewable energy sources. • Nuclear power remains the cleanest energy source, clearly more advantageous than gas and renewables.

26. What about the future improvements?

27. Fig. 12 Comparison of health effects, legal limits and actual power plant operation effects for radiation doses and SO2 concentrations. The coal fired power plant parameters were taken from ExternE 95 (Lauffen, FGD of 90% desulphurization efficiency, 7000 tons SO2/GWe.a)

28. Pollution indicators for coal and nuclear power plants

29. Fig. 13 Pollution of atmosphere due to yearly operation of a coal fired power plant of 1000 MWe with modern filters. As the pollution measure we take the amount of air polluted to admissible limit established by health authorities for breathing air. The diameter of polluted area is determined assuming that the pollution is uniformly distributed in our troposphere, i.e. the layer of air of 10 km height. The comparison with a nuclear power plant (NPP) shows that the pollution due to coal fired modern power plant is 160 000 bigger than that from an NPP.

30. ExternE methodology Fig. 14 Outline of stages for calculating characterization factors for human health [Krewitt 02, Indicators] Fig. 15 Chemical scheme in WTM, adopted from [Derwent 93]

31. Fig. 16 Impact pathway for an atmospheric release of radionuclides into the terrestrial environment Fig. 17 The Externe Methodology, Ari Rabl [2003]

32. Health effects due to full nuclear fuel cycle For nuclear fuel cycle, the dominating contribution to estimates of external costs are due to very small doses of radiation, which are a very small fraction of the background radiation but are received by many people and over many generations. According to UK analyses performed for Sizewell B NPP with a PWR of 1258 MWe (1188 MWe) operated under load factor of 84.2% and fuel reprocessing in Sellafield [40], taking into account the results obtained in SENES study [41], the environmental burdens and health costs are as follows: • 1. Uranium mining and ore processing to concentrate • On the basis of analysis for 8 large centers of uranium production in 4 countries, (in 1997 produced 2/3 of uranium in the world), SENES study [41] showed that the collective dose involved was 0,11 man-Sv/TWh. • The collective dose to professional workers was 0.7 manSv/TWh [40]. • 2. Releases to the air during conversion, enrichment and fuel production are very small, in total about 0,05 manSv/TWh.

33. Health effects due to full nuclear fuel cycle 3. Releases during NPP operation are very small and much less than admissible values. In the UK study the values corresponding to the upper design limits were taken, which are 15 to 100 times higher than the average values for PWRs operating in France, Sweden, Switzerland and the US. Using real releases and their upper limits we obtain the values 10 times smaller than in [40], which yields the collective dose for society equal to 0,04 man-Sv/TWh. Professional exposure is 0.028 man-Sv/TWh. 4. At reprocessing the collective dose per unit of electricity produced in Sizewell B NPP is 0.448 manSv/TWh. In total the dose corresponding to the unit of electricity produced in an NPP is 1.38 man-Sv/TWh, or according to the conservative estimate in [40] 1.74 man-Sv/TWh. According to ICRP methodology, the dose of 1 manSv corresponds to 0.05 cancer death. Since in ExternE it was assumed that one cancer death involves the loss of 15.6 YOLL, the dose of 1.38 man-Sv/TWh corresponds to life shortening by 1.07 YOLL/TWh.

34. Fig. 18 Effect of discount rate on present value of damages worth 1 million ECU at the time (from 1 to 100 years in the future) when damage is incurred [Rabl 2000].

35. Long term hazard due to radioactive carbon (CO2) released from nuclear fuel

36. ExternE costs of health damages • The results shown above indicate that burning of organic fuels even in most modern power plants is connected with much higher health hazards than the operation of nuclear installations. However, this is only a qualitative judgment. • In order to obtain a tool for numerical comparisons, the results of large epidemiological studies have been used to estimate the number of years of life lost (YOLL) due to air pollution or nuclear radiation produced in the process of electricity generation [9]. • Using the value of statistical life, which in EU countries has been found equal to 3.1 million Euro, it is possible to evaluate financial costs connected with environmental burdens involved in electricity production. • In ExternE project it was found, that a premature death due to chronic exposure corresponds to 11 YOLL, and by acute exposure – to 0.75 YOLL. The financial values of YOLL for acute and chronic exposures in EU at discount rate of 3% are 116 250 EURO and 84 330 EURO, respectively[35].

37. Fig. 20 External costs of electricity generated in Germany [Krewitt 01]

39. Fig. 22 Typical damage costs for the fossil fuel chains, assuming average European conditions and new baseload power plants. For existing power plants the emissions of NO2 and SO2 can be several times higher. Costs for nuclear are upper bound (0% effective discount rate). Range of typical retail prices of electricity, 40 to 80 mEuro/kWh [Rabl 2000].

40. Fig. 23 Typical damage costs for the fossil fuel chains, for average European conditions and new baseload power plants. For existing power plants the emissions of NO2 and SO2 can be several times higher. Nuclear costs upper bound (0% effective discount rate). Range of typical retail prices of electricity, 40 to 80 mEuro/kWh [Rabl 2000].

41. External costs

42. ExternE – loss of life

44. Dependence of external costs on the regional features Main parameter - the density of population, with the average value for EU 15 evaluated at 80 inhabitants per km2 and values for some regions, e.g. south western Germany, being much higher. The distribution of population is also important. Moreover, the process of transformations of NOx into nitrate aerosols (mainly ammonium nitrates), requires the availability of free ammonia in the atmosphere. Since there is a competing formation of ammonium sulphates from SO2 and NH3, the availability of ammonia often is a limiting factor for nitrate aerosol formation. With lower SO2 and NOx emissions the fraction of NOx reacting with ammonia and producing aerosols is larger and the emission cost per unit release is higher. This leads to different emission costs for different regions.

45. Fig. 27. Consideration of secondary hazards

46. Fig. 28 Location influence on health effects of SO2 emissions from power plants in Poland 3.5 3 Chorzów 2.5 Warszawa 2 YOLL/1000 ton_SO2 Turów 1.5 Bełchatów 1 Dolna Odra 0.5 Ostrołęka 0 0 50 100 150 200 250 stack height [m]

47. Hazards of radioactive wastes • Radioactive wastes are collected and under control • Other wastes are dispersed in the environment • Which is better? • Chemical waste does not decay – radwaste decays over long time periods. Which is less dangerous? Can nuclear waste be kept for centuries in containment? Example 1 – Swedish ship Vasa – recovered from the sea bottom after 3 centuries, many objects in very good shape. If sea water did not dissolve them, why should radwaste containers fail?

48. Oklo reactor wastes had a long time to penetrate to environment

49. Reprocessed waste becomes less dangerous than coal burning waste – or even uranium ore

50. Overall comparison of health damages due to electricity generation in various systems. • Nuclear power is together with such renewable energy sources as wind or hydropower the most friendly to human health and environment. • PV cells are less advantageous, because they require enormous amounts of raw materials, electricity and human work. They require also large backup in the power system to compensate the loss of energy production during nights. • Backup power is also needed for wind. • Among organic fuels the most advantageous ecologically is natural gas, although it is behind nuclear power and hydropower. • Coal and oil burning are still sources of significant environment pollution.