Assessment of the impacts on health due to the emissions of Cuban power plants that use fossil fuel oils with high content of sulfur. Estimation of external costs

Abstract Fossil fuel electricity generation has been demonstrated to be a main source of atmospheric pollution. The necessity of finding out a balance between the costs of achieving a lower level of environmental and health injury and the benefits of providing electricity at a reasonable cost have lead to the process of estimating the external costs derived from these impacts and not included in the electricity prices as a quantitative measure of it that, even when there are large uncertainties involved, can be used by decision makers in the process of achieving a global sustainable development. The external costs of the electricity generation in three Cuban power plants that use fossil fuel oils with high sulfur content have been assessed. With that purpose a specific implementation of the Impact Pathways Methodology for atmospheric emissions was developed. Dispersion of atmospheric pollutants is modeled at local and regional scales in a detailed way. Health impacts include mortality and those morbidity effects that showed relation with the increment of selected pollutant concentration in national studies. The external cost assessed for the three plants was 40,588,309 USD yr−1 (min./max.: 10,194,833/169,013,252), representing 1.06 USD Cent kWh−1. Costs derived from sulfur species (SO2 and sulfate aerosol) stand for 93% of the total costs.