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In this part of the series we explain the detailed literature review and the calculations of impacts and damage costs of mercury and lead. Methodology and general assumptions are explained in the companion article, Part 1 of this series, and the spreadsheet with the calculations is available as a supplementary file of Part 1.3 For mercury, the damage cost is 22,937 €2013 /kg if there is a no-effect threshold, 52,129 €2013 /kg if there is none; 91% is due to mortality from heart disease, the rest from loss of IQ points. For lead, the damage cost is 29,343 €2013 /kg, about 80% due to mortality and 20% due to IQ loss; there does not seem to be a no-effect threshold. These costs are per kg of emitted pollutant.

Significant quantities of toxic metals are emitted to the air by the incineration of waste, as well as by the combustion of coal and oil. To optimize the regulations for their emissions one needs to know the cost of their damage. That requires an impact pathway analysis, with realistic dispersion models, exposure-response functions, and monetary values. In this article we explain the method and assumptions and present results for arsenic, cadmium, mercury, and lead, the most important toxic metals in terms of damage cost. We also estimate their contribution to the damage cost of waste incineration and electric power from coal for typical situations in Europe. The damage costs of As, Cd, and Pb are much higher than previous estimates because of a large number of new epidemiological studies, implying more and more serious health effects than what had been known before. New cost-benefit studies for the abatement of toxic metal emissions are advisable. The discussion of the epidemiological studies and the derivation of exposure-response functions are presented in two companion articles, one for As and Cd, the other for Hg and Pb.

Since Fukushima many are calling for a shutdown of nuclear power plants. To see whether such a shutdown would reduce the risks for health and environment, the external costs of nuclear electricity are compared with alternatives that could replace it. The frequency of catastrophic nuclear accidents is based on the historical record, about one in 25 years for the plants built to date, an order of magnitude higher than the safety goals of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Impacts similar to Chernobyl and Fukushima are assumed to estimate the cost. A detailed comparison is presented with wind as alternative with the lowest external cost. The variability of wind necessitates augmentation by other sources, primarily fossil fuels, because storage at the required scale is in most regions too expensive. The external costs of natural gas combined cycle are taken as 0.6 €cent/kWh due to health effects of air pollution and 1.25 €cent/kWh due to greenhouse gases (at 25 € / t CO 2 eq ) for the central estimate, but a wide range of different parameters is also considered, both for nuclear and for the alternatives. Although the central estimate of external costs of the wind-based alternative is higher than that of nuclear, the uncertainty ranges overlap.

Les LEZ (Low Emission Zones) sont des zones urbaines ou la circulation des vieux vehicules polluants est limitee ou interdite. Bien qu’un nombre important de LEZ aient deja ete creees dans l’UE, on ne trouve que 3 etudes d’Analyses Cout-Benefice (ACB) a Londres, Anvers et Paris. Ce document resume ces etudes et identifie des faiblesses importantes. En France, des LEZ ont ete proposees pour une dizaine de grandes villes sous le nom de ZAPA (Zones d'Actions Prioritaires pour l'Air), aujourd’hui abandonnees au profit des Zones a Circulation Restreinte (ZCR). Les etudes ACB existantes montrent que deux effets dominent la conclusion : les benefices pour la sante de la population et les pertes de valeurs pour les proprietaires des vehicules exclus.

This review describes the methodology for the analysis of environmental damages and presents key results obtained by the external costs of energy (ExternE) projects of the European Commission as well as analogous work in the U.S. The classical air pollutants (PM, NOx, SO2, and O3) due to the combustion of fossil fuels cause significant damage costs. The costs of global warming from the emission of greenhouse gases are also large. We show results for the damage cost per kilogram of emitted pollutant for typical conditions in Europe; they are based on the last version of ExternE (published in 2008), but with a major upward adjustment of the monetary values. We also show results that have been published in the U.S. Combined with the emissions data per kilowatt hour, they yield the damage costs of electric power. For the choice between different power technologies, one should take into account not only the emissions from the power plant but also from the entire fuel chain, using life cycle assessment (LCA) inventories. The damage costs of fossil fuels are much higher than most renewable energy sources. The results provide crucial input for the formulation of rational environmental policies, for example, the appropriate level of pollution taxes and the promotion of cleaner technologies.

Background: Substantial policy changes to control obesity, limit chronic disease, and reduce air pollution emissions, including greenhouse gasses, have been recommended. Transportation and planning policies that promote active travel by walking and cycling can contribute to these goals, potentially yielding further co-benefits. Little is known, however, about the interconnections among effects of policies considered, including potential unintended consequences. Objectives and methods: We review available literature regarding health impacts from policies that encourage active travel in the context of developing health impact assessment (HIA) models to help decision-makers propose better solutions for healthy environments. We identify important components of HIA models of modal shifts in active travel in response to transport policies and interventions. Results and discussion: Policies that increase active travel are likely to generate large individual health benefits through increases in physical activity for active travelers. Smaller, but population-wide benefits could accrue through reductions in air and noise pollution. Depending on conditions of policy implementations, risk tradeoffs are possible for some individuals who shift to active travel and consequently increase inhalation of air pollutants and exposure to traffic injuries. Well-designed policies may enhance health benefits through indirect outcomes such as improved social capital and diet, but these synergies are not sufficiently well understood to allow quantification at this time. Conclusion: Evaluating impacts of active travel policies is highly complex; however, many associations can be quantified. Identifying health-maximizing policies and conditions requires integrated HIAs. Keywords: Walking, Cycling, Built environment, Risk assessment, Physical activity, Air pollution

We analyze climate change in a cost–benefit framework, using the emission and concentration profiles of Wigley et al. (Nature 379(6562):240–243, 1996). They present five scenarios that cover the period 1990–2300 and are designed to reach stabilized concentration levels of 350, 450, 550, 650 and 750 ppmv, respectively. We assume that the damage cost in each year t is proportional to the corresponding gross world product and the square of the atmospheric temperature increase (ΔT(t)). The latter is estimated with a simple two-box model (representing the atmosphere and deep ocean). Coupling the damage cost with the abatement cost, we interpolate between the five scenarios to find the one that is optimal in the sense of minimizing the sum of discounted annual (abatement plus damage) costs over a time horizon of N years. Our method is simpler than ‘traditional’ models with the same purpose, and thus allows for a more transparent sensitivity study with respect to the uncertainties of all parameters involved. We report our central result in terms of the stabilized emission level E o and concentration level p o (i.e. their values at t = 300 years) of the optimal scenario. For the central parameter values (that is, N = 150 years, a discount rate r dis = 2%/year and a growth rate r gro = 1%/year of gross world product) we find E o = 8.0 GtCO2/year and p o = 496 ppmv. Varying the parameters over a wide range, we find that the optimal emission level remains within a remarkably narrow range, from about 6.0 to 12 GtCO2/year for all plausible parameter values. To assess the significance of the uncertainties we focus on the social cost penalty, defined as the extra cost incurred by society relative to the optimum if one makes the wrong choice of the emission level as a result of erroneous damage and abatement cost estimates. In relative terms the cost penalty turns out to be remarkably insensitive to errors. For example, if the true damage costs are three times larger or smaller than the estimate, the total social cost of global climate change increases by less than 20% above its minimum at the true optimal emission level. Because of the enormous magnitude of the total costs involved with climate change (mitigation), however, even a small relative error implies large additional expenses in absolute terms. To evaluate the benefit of reducing cost uncertainties, we plot the cost penalty as function of the uncertainty in relative damage and abatement costs, expressed as geometric standard deviation and standard deviation respectively. If continued externality analysis reduces the geometric standard deviation of relative damage cost estimates from 5 to 4, the benefit is 0.05% of the present value G tot of total gross word product over 150 years (about $3.9 × 1015), and if further research reduces the standard deviation of relative abatement costs from 1 to 0.5, the benefit is 0.03% of G tot .

Whereas the uncertainty of environmental impacts and damage costs is usually estimated by means of a Monte Carlo calculation, this paper shows that most (and in many cases all) of the uncertainty calculation involves products and/or sums of products and can be accomplished with an analytic solution which is simple and transparent. We present our own assessment of the component uncertainties and calculate the total uncertainty for the impacts and damage costs of the classical air pollutants; results for a Monte Carlo calculation for the dispersion part are also shown. The distribution of the damage costs is approximately lognormal and can be characterized in terms of geometric mean {mu}{sub g} and geometric standard deviation {sigma}{sub g}, implying that the confidence interval is multiplicative. We find that for the classical air pollutants {sigma}{sub g} is approximately 3 and the 68% confidence interval is [{mu}{sub g} / {sigma}{sub g}, {mu}{sub g}{sigma}{sub g}]. Because the lognormal distribution is highly skewed for large {sigma}{sub g}, the median is significantly smaller than the mean. We also consider the case where several lognormally distributed damage costs are added, for example to obtain the total damage cost due to all the air pollutants emitted by a powermore » plant, and we find that the relative error of the sum can be significantly smaller than the relative errors of the summands. Even though the distribution for such sums is not exactly lognormal, we present a simple lognormal approximation that is quite adequate for most applications.« less

The paper presents a framework for the analysis of external costs of environmental burdens, namely an impact pathway analysis, often coupled with the inventory stage of life cycle assessment (LCA). The ground rule is: quantify as much as possible in terms of burdens (pollutant emissions, etc.), impacts, and their monetary equivalent, then use multi-criteria analysis (MCA) for any remaining impacts that are considered to be too uncertain or defy quantification through to monetization. Although MCA could be used directly on estimates of burdens or impacts, monetary valuation provides a mechanism for consistent weighting of impacts categories based on assessment of public preference. Further advantages of extending LCA through detailed impact assessment combined with monetary valuation are that it greatly simplifies MCA by combining a large number of different environmental impact categories, thereby avoiding an unmanageably large number of criteria, and also facilitates cost benefit analysis (CBA)....

Background Inhabitants of Guadeloupe are chronically exposed to low doses of chlordecone via local food due to its past use in banana plantations. The corresponding health impacts have not been quantified. We develop a quantitative method and present the results in two articles: 1. Hazard identification, exposure-response functions, and exposure, 2. Health impacts, and benefits of a program to reduce the exposure of the population. Here is the second article. Methods The exposure-response functions derived in Part 1 (for liver and prostate cancer, renal dysfunction and cognitive development) are combined with the exposure data to calculate the impacts. The corresponding costs are calculated via DALY’s and VOLY. A no-effect threshold is included via the marginal fraction of the collective exposure above the reference dose. The health benefits are the impacts in 2002 (before the exposure reduction program) minus the impacts in 2006 (since the program). They are compared to the costs, namely the public annual expenditures for reducing the population exposure. Results Without threshold, estimated annual cases of liver cancer, prostate cancer and renal dysfunction are respectively 5.4, 2.8, 0.10 in 2002; and 2.0, 1.0, 0.04 in 2006. Annual IQ points lost (cognitive development) are respectively: 1 173 and 1 003. The annual cost of total impacts is 38.3 Million Euros (M€) in 2002 and 23.7 M€ in 2006. Comparing the benefit of 14.6 M€ with the 3.25 M€ spent for prevention, the program appears well justified. With threshold, the costs of the impacts are lower, respectively: 26.5 M€ in 2002 and 12.8 M€ in 2006, but the benefit is not very different: 13.7 M€. Conclusion This is the first study that quantified chronic non genotoxic effects of chlordecone exposures in Guadeloupe. According to our results, preventive actions should be focused on pregnant women because of the high social cost of development impairment and also because their exposures decreased less rapidly than others. Prevention effort should be sustained as long as chlordecone remains in soils. Additional toxicological and epidemiological research would also be required for health endpoints that could not be taken into account (neurotoxicity of adults, autoimmune diseases and other developmental effects). Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12940-016-0159-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Background Inhabitants of Guadeloupe are chronically exposed to low dose of chlordecone via local food. The corresponding health impacts have not been quantified. Nevertheless the public authority implemented an exposure reduction program in 2003. We develop methods for quantifying the health impacts of chlordecone and present the results in 2 articles: 1. hazard identification, exposure-response functions (ERF) and exposure in Guadeloupe, 2. Health impacts and benefits of exposure reduction. Here is the first article. Methods Relevant data are extracted from publications searched in Medline and Toxline. Available knowledges on mode of action and key-event hazards of chlordecone are used to identify effects of chlordecone that could occur at low dose. Then a linear ERF is derived for each possible effect. From epidemiological data, ERF is the delta relative risk (RR-1) divided by the corresponding delta exposure. From animal studies, ERF is the benchmark response (10 %) divided by the best benchmark dose modeled with BMDS2.4.0. Our goal is to obtain central values for the ERF slopes, applicable to typical human populations, rather than lower or upper bounds in the most sensitive species or sex. Results We derive ERFs for 3 possible effects at chronic low chlordecone dose: cancers, developmental impairment, and hepatotoxicity. Neurotoxicity in adults is also a possible effect at low dose but we lack quantitative data for the ERF derivation. A renal toxicity ERF is derived for comparison purpose. Two ERFs are based on epidemiological studies: prostate cancer in men aged >44y (0.0019 per μg/Lblood) and altered neurodevelopment in boys (−0.32 QIpoint per μg/Lcord-blood). Two are based on animal studies: liver cancer (2.69 per mg/kg/d), and renal dysfunction in women (0.0022 per mg/kg/d). Conclusion The methodological framework developed here yields ERFs for central risk estimates for non-genotoxic effects of chemicals; it is robust with regard to models used. This framework can be used generally to derive ERFs suitable for risk assessment and for cost-benefit analysis of public health decisions. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12940-016-0160-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Evaluation monetaire d’un gain d’esperance de vie du a une reduction de la pollution de l’air : les enseignements d’une evaluation contingente en France Ce papier presente les resultats d’une enquete d’evaluation contingente effectuee en France afin d’estimer les gains en termes d’esperance de vie de la reduction de la pollution de l’air. Le questionnaire utilise a ete developpe par Krupnick at al. [2002] pour les Etats Unis. Il a ete traduit et administre a 300 individus âges de 40 a 75 ans. Le questionnaire original a ete modifie. D’une part, une question ouverte a ete ajoutee apres chacune des trois series d’offre. D’autre part, a la fin du questionnaire et apres avoir rappele au repondant les valeurs de consentement a payer exprimees, l’opportunite lui etait donnee de modifier ces valeurs. Chaque questionnaire se termine par un ″debriefing″ ecrit detaille afin d’apprehender comment les personnes interrogees avaient interprete les questions posees. De plus, afin de tester la robustesse des reponses, cinq variantes du questionnaire initial ont ete testees sur des echantillons composes d’environ 50 individus chacun. Ces variantes incluaient en particulier des scenarios ou le benefice issus de la reduction de la pollution de l’air etait exprime en terme de gain d’esperance de vie. Il a alors ete possible de tester la sensibilite des reponses recueillies aux offres proposees ou a la description retenue afin de presenter le ″bien″ a evaluer. Pour chaque scenario une ″valeur d’une annee de vie″ (VOLY) a ete estimee. Ces valeurs sont comprises entre 0.020 to 0.220 M€. Cette forte dispersion reflete la grande difficulte qu’ont les personnes interrogees a comprendre les concepts de variation de risque et a repondre a ces propositions en terme de consentement a payer.

Environmental damage is one of the main justifications for continued efforts to reduce energy consumption and to shift to cleaner sources such as solar energy. In recent years there has been much progress in the analysis of environmental damages, in particular thanks to the ExternE (External Costs of Energy) Project of the European Commission. This article presents a summary of the methodology and key results for the external costs of the major energy technologies. Even though the uncertainties are large, the results provide substantial evidence that the classical air pollutants (particles, No(x), and SO(2)) from fossil fuels impose significant public health costs, comparable to the cost of global warming from CO(2) emissions. The total external costs are relatively low for natural gas (in the range of about 0.5-1 eurocents/kWh for most EU countries), but much higher for coal and lignite (in the range of about 2-6 eurocents/kWh for most EU countries). By contrast, the external costs of nuclear, wind, and photovoltaics are very low. The external costs of hydro are extremely variable from site to site, and the ones of biomass depend strongly on the specific technologies used and can be quite large for combustion.

This article concerns the interpretation of epidemiological studies of air pollution mortality and the choice of indicators for quantifying the impact, for communication with policymakers. It is shown that the total mortality impact (measured by cohort studies) can only be quantified in terms of loss of life expectancy (LLE), not number of premature deaths. Time-series (TS) studies of mortality observe only acute impacts, that is, deaths due to short-term exposure ("acute mortality"); they allow the estimation of a number of deaths without providing any information on the LLE per death. However, even if the average loss per death is as long as 6 mo, acute mortality is only a very small percentage of the total mortality attributable to air pollution. Estimates of the population-average LLE due to air pollution are provided, for acute mortality, total adult mortality, and infant mortality.

This article examines the prospects for cost reductions of flat panel photovoltaic (PV) electricity. Current PV production cost ranges are presented, in terms of cost per peak W and cost per kWh, for single crystalline and multi-crystalline silicon, as well as for thin-film technologies. Possible decreases of these costs are assessed, as expected based on learning curves. The cumulative production needed to reach ‘breakeven’ (at which PV is competitive with conventional alternatives) is estimated for a range of values of the learning curve parameter. The cost of this cumulative production is calculated, and the question is posed whether and how the ‘cost cap’ can be bridged, the latter being the difference between what this cumulative production will cost and what it would cost if it could be produced at a currently competitive level. We also estimate how much PV could gain if external costs (due to environmental and health damage) of energy were internalised, for example by an energy tax. The conclusions are: (1) mainly due its high costs, PV electricity is unlikely to play a major role in global energy supply and carbon emissions abatement before 2020, (2) extrapolating past learning curves, one can expect its costs to decrease significantly, so that a considerable PV electricity share world-wide could materialise after 2020, (3) niche-market applications, e.g. using stand-alone systems in remote areas, are crucial for continuing “the ride along the learning curve”, (4) damage costs of conventional (fossil) power sources are considerable, and they could provide an important part of the rationale behind major policy efforts to encourage increased use of PV. The costs involved with such policies would be elevated, but a considerable share of these costs could be justified by the fact that conventional power damage costs constitute a significant fraction of the cost gap, although probably not enough to close it.

This article gives an overview of the current state-of-the-art of photovoltaic electricity technology, and addresses its potential for cost reductions over the first few decades of the 21st century. Current PV production cost ranges are presented, both in terms of capacity installation and electricity generation, of single crystalline silicon, multi-crystalline silicon, amorphous silicon and other thin film technologies. Possible decreases of these costs are assessed, as expected according to the learning-curve methodology. We also estimate how much PV could gain if external costs (due to environmental and health damage) of energy were internalised, for example by an energy tax. Our conclusions are that, (1) mainly due its high costs, PV electricity is unlikely to play a major role in global energy supply and carbon emissions abatement before 2020, (2) extrapolating learning curves observed in the past, one can expect its costs to decrease significantly over the coming years, so that a considerable PV electricity share world-wide could materialise after 2020, (3) niche-market applications, e.g. using stand-alone systems in remote areas, are crucial for continuing ‘the ride along the learning curve’, (4) damage costs of conventional (fossil) power sources are considerable, and their internalisation would improve the competitiveness of PV, although probably not enough to close the current cost gap.

This paper presents a life cycle assessment comparing diesel buses with buses fueled by natural gas. The data for the emission of pollutants are based on the MEET Project of the European Commission (EC), supplemented by data measured for diesel and gas buses in Paris. The benefits of the gas fueled bus are then quantified using the damage cost estimates of the ExternE Project of the EC. A diesel bus with emissions equal to Standard EURO2 of the EC is compared with the same bus equipped with a natural gas engine, for use in Paris and in Toulouse. The damage cost of a diesel bus is significant, in the range of 0.4–1.3 /km. Natural gas allows an appreciable reduction of the emissions, lowering the damage cost by a factor of about 2.5 (Toulouse) to 5.5 (Paris). An approximate rule is provided for transferring the results to other cities. A sensitivity analysis is carried out to evaluate the effect of the evolution of the emissions standard towards EURO3, 4 and 5, as well as the effect of uncertainties. Finally a comparison is presented between a EURO2 diesel bus with particle filter, and a gas fueled bus with the MPI engine of IVECO, a more advanced and cleaner technology. With this engine the damage costs of the gas fueled bus are about 3–5 times lower than those of the diesel with particle filter, even though the latter has already very low emissions.