Lecture 23 Summary and Notes

Some questions for the day...

1. How to the predefined probability approach, the currently tolerated approach, and the economic approach (cost-benefit analysis and cost-utility analysis) differ as mechanisms for determining acceptable risk? What is a historic example of a cost-benefit analysis that demonstrated the economic savings of risk reduction outweighing the cost of intervention? How does cost-benefit analysis work when more than one risk or potential risk is present? In a cost-benefit analysis, who generally pays for the costs associated with failure to reduce a risk; in the same system, who generally benefits from the failure to reduce a risk? What is VSL? How does VSL figure in to calculating risk of some behavior? What is a modern estimate for VSL (American, not too old)? According to the WHO, when is a risk acceptable?

2. What is a life cycle analysis? What is full cost accounting? What are externalities and and how does their exclusion from economic transactions distort the decision-making processes?

3. What is average price of coal as an energy source (cents per kilowatt hour? How does this price compare with electricity that has been generated from other sources? How would full cost accounting (adding in all of the “externalities” ei costs are external to the coal industry) affect the price of electricity produced from coal coal combustion?

4. What are the most common coal combustion products (both gasses and solids)?

5. How common are acute coal mining related deaths in the USA (over the past 30 years)? How has this changed from 100 years ago? What combination of factors have been responsible for these changes? 6. How do acute mining deaths in the US compare with those over the past decade or so in China?

Slides from today's lecture are on Sakai and the data file for HW 8 is on Sakai and there are additional copies of the assignment tacked to my bulletin board if you missed class today. We will continue with coal on Monday with a further look into the waste stream of coal, a discussion of how electricity is generated from coal, how pollution control technology works, how recently adopted regulations by the EPA are affecting the viability of coal-fired power plants in the USA, and how burning fossil fuels such as coal affects the global carbon cycle. For Monday, please read Utilities announce closure of 10 aging power plants in Midwest, East by Juliet Eilperin published in the February 29 edition of the Washington Post and Christian environmental group says the EPA's new rules on mercury pollution is a pro-life issue by Jim Harger in the December 03, 2011 edition of the The Grand Rapids Press.