3rd ELAEE 2011 Latin American Meeting on Energy Economics April 18-19, 2011 Buenos Aires, Argentina

ANALISYS OF ELECTRICITY GENERATION ALTERNATIVES ACCORDING TO ENVIRONMENTAL, SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CRITERIA
Joo M. L. Moreira, Professor (PhD) Center of Engineering, Modeling and Applied Social Sciences, Universidade Federal do ABC Rua Santa Adlia, 166, 09210-170 Santo Andr, SP, Brazil Phone: +551149960115, Email: joao.moreira@ufabc.edu.br Marcos de Araujo Cesaretti, Technical Engineer (MSc) Center of Engineering, Modeling and Applied Social Sciences, Universidade Federal do ABC mcesaretti@gmail.com

Abstract Comparing power generation alternatives is not an easy task due to their different characteristics, and social and environmental impacts. Any comparative analysis requires a systematic procedure and adequate data considering the whole life cycle of the complete chain of electricity generation. In this work, we define intensity coefficients of electricity generation due to impact causing factors like emission of greenhouse gases, water consumption, population morbidity, risk of accidents, etc. The power generation alternatives considered are wind, hydro, coal, natural gas, oil, nuclear and biomass, and the set of criteria included emission of greenhouse gases, water consumption, occupied area, use and processing of natural resources, population morbidity, fatalities in severe accidents, cost of electricity and operational efficiency. The impact coefficient results present large variation due to different data from the literature, but some general observations can be outlined. For global warming, coal and oil present the highest impacts and biomass and wind, the lowest impacts. For immobilized area over time, hydropower present the highest impact, nuclear, biomass with co-generation and wind present intermediate impacts, and fossil fuels present the lowest impacts. For use and processing of natural resources, biomass presents the highest impact; wind, hydro and nuclear power present the lowest impacts. For water consumption, coal and nuclear present the highest impacts, wind and biomass present the lowest impacts, and natural gas, intermediate impact. For population morbidity, coal and oil present the highest impacts; nuclear, hydro and wind present the lowest impacts. For the number of fatalities in accidents it is important to analyse the situation of hydropower. If the accident of Shimantan is considered, this option is by far the one with the largest impact coefficient. Nuclear power presents number of fatalities in accidents similar to the coal and oil alternatives, and wind and biomass, the lowest figures. For cost of electricity generation all alternatives present close figures, natural gas seems to be the most competitive one but the cost data present large variation for all options. For energy operational inefficiency, biomass, oil, nuclear, coal and wind present the highest inefficiency, and hydropower present the lowest inefficiency.

Keywords: life cycle, electricity generation, sustainability 1. Introduction There are today several alternatives for the expansion and diversification of electricity supply, but making a decision about them is not an easy task. The points of view of the different stakeholders

(government, investors, local citizens, environmental groups, etc.) are important and must be included in the evaluations, which must take into consideration environmental, social and economic dimensions (Magalhes, 2009; La Rovere et al., 2010, Cesaretti, 2010, Goldemberg & Lucon, 2008). Such comparative analyses require adequate data considering the whole life cycle of the complete chains of electricity generation. Many authors complain about data scarcity, their large variation or spread, and inadequate format to carry out

comparison evaluations (Rosa, 2007; La Rovere et al., 2010; Brazil, 2007; Fthenakis & Kim, 2009; Gagnon et al., 2002; Goldemberg & Lucon, 2008; Lenzen, 2008; Markandya & Wilkinson, 2007; Sovacool 2008). Recently, several studies were published about comparisons of different power generation alternatives. Lenzen (2008) and Weisser (2007) discussed the emission of greenhouse gases for several power generation alternatives considering the whole life cycle. Rosa (2007) compared several power generation options using a qualitative evaluation, and La Rovere et al. (2010) and Rio and Burguilo (2009) performed similar analysis using a quantitative approach. Evans et al. (2009) utilized literature data to compare photovoltaic, wind, hydro, geothermal, natural gas and coal power generation options considering as criteria the emission of CO2, use of natural resources, technical limitations, occupied area, use of water and social impacts. Fthenakis and Kim (2009) compared occupied areas for different power generation options, and Admantiades and Kessides (2009) compared their cost of generation and emission of greenhouse gases. Curran et al. (2005), taking into consideration different groups of stakeholders, suggested as important criteria for such evaluations water consumption, emission of greenhouse gases, emission of pollutants, use of natural resources, occupied area, and emission of residues. In this work, we consider the problem of evaluating several power generation alternatives according to environmental, social and economic criteria. We collect in the literature data considering the whole life cycle of complete chains of electricity generation, and present them in a useful form to perform such analysis for different conditions and aims. To do that we define intensity coefficients of electricity generation due to impact causing factors such as emission of greenhouse gases, water consumption, population morbidity, risk of accidents, etc. In most cases, the impact coefficient is defined per unit of electricity generation, following a procedure adopted by many authors (La Rovere et al., 2010; Brazil, 2007; Fthenakis & Kim, 2009; Goldemberg & Lucon, 2008). Eight different criteria and seven different power generation option are considered. We start in Section 2 defining the impact coefficient, which accounts for the impact electricity generation causes on the environment and society. We choose a set of criteria that may be acceptable to a broad group of stakeholders, and for each criterion, we associate an impact coefficient. In Section 3 we present average values and estimated uncertainties or variations for the impact coefficients. In Section 4 we present the conclusions.

2. Methods In this section, we present how the impacts caused by electricity generation are estimated through impact coefficients. They are defined by ratios involving the generated impact and the product of an economy, or specifically, the electricity generated. Then we select a set of criteria useful for such evaluations taking into consideration the possible interests of different groups of stakeholders. Finally, we present the source of the
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data used for estimating the impact coefficients, most of them based on complete production chain and life cycle analysis. 2.1. Estimation of impacts Electricity is a basic input to any productive activity, has strong interaction with the environment and society, and causes different types of impacts. Let Si be the generation rate of the ith type of impact while an economy produces a product Y. We can define an impact coefficient, i, relating the ith type of impact and the production activity as (1) where represents a change in the variables S i and Y. The index i identifies each type of impact that the production activities may cause to the environment or society. If the product in question is electricity generation, the several impacts may include CO2 emissions, radioactive waste generation, loss of biodiversity, noise, air pollution, diseases, etc. We can estimate the impact due to the electricity generation, E, in the economy through . (2)

The first ratio in the right side of Eq. 2 represents a coefficient that yields the amount of i th impact per unit of electricity generated. Let it be called as the ith type impact coefficient for electricity generation, iE, (3) The second ratio in Eq. 2 represents the electricity intensity of the economy, IE. Therefore, the impact coefficient due to electricity generation in the economy is . (4)

Eq. 4 says that the impact coefficient i due to electricity generation by an economy depends on two factors: how the economy generates and uses electricity, the technology and natural resource utilized, etc, which is given by i; and how much electricity the society uses, which is given by IE (Curran et al. 2005; Weisser, 2007; Lenzen, 2008). For instance, we can reduce the emission of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere by reducing the amount of electricity used in the society (reducing I E), or reducing iE through moving from alternatives that emit very much greenhouse gases to others that do not. Wind, biomass and nuclear power emit less CO2 than fossil fuels, and thus they present smaller iE. Moving from one alternative to another may reduce environmental impacts without decreasing the amount energy that is generated.

Some impacts can be represented directly by numerical values and others cannot. For example, damage to human health due to pollution can be estimated as society morbidity. Other impacts such as loss of biodiversity or climate changes are more difficult to assess. In these cases, a way to circumvent this difficulty is to relate the consequence to some causing factor that can be evaluated through available data. For example, the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere can be taken as an indicator to the global warming intensity; the occupied area can be an indicator of stress on the region biodiversity. 2.2. Selected criteria and impact coefficients The set of criteria to evaluate impacts due to electricity generation by different alternatives have to consider the environmental, social and economic dimensions. Table 1 presents the selected criteria, which are not exhaustive, but try to cover the main issues related to electricity generation. We can say that the public consider global warming, immobilized area and water consumption important environmental issues that deserve to be included in the set of criteria. The dematerialization was considered a criterion because it is desirable to reduce the mass of material utilized and processed by society, in order to reduce the stress on the environment (Goldemberg e Lucon, 2008; Reis & Cunha, 2006; Veiga, 2006; Weisser, 2007; Curran et al., 2005). In general, the greater is the amount of material input in the production processes, the greater will be the corresponding environmental impacts.

Table 1 Criteria and impact coefficients for evaluating electricity generation alternatives
Dimension Criterion Variable associated with the impact coefficient (iE)

1. Global warming 2. Imobilized area (rea x time) Environment 3. Use and processing of natural resources (dematerialization) 4. Water consumption 5. Radiation, pollution and human health 6. Safety and risk of very damaging accidents 7. Direct cost of electricity generation 8. Energy and operational efficiency

1. Emisso de CO2 (kg CO2/MWh) 2. Imobilized area (m2 year/MWh) 3. Mass of input materials that strongly perturbs the environment (kg/MWh) 4. Water consumption (m3/MWh) 5. human morbidity (morbidity/MWh) 6. fatalities in accidents (numer of deaths) 7. Direct cost of electricity ($/MWh) 8. Product of energy efficiency and capacity factor (dimensionless)

Social

Economics

Regarding the social dimension, we consider human morbidity and consequences of potential accidents. The society considers good health as an important indicator for welfare (Markandya & Wilkinson (2007) and thus population morbidity was included as a criterion. In addition, the society considers the possibility of occurring potential accidents and the risk to the public safety important issues as well. We

consider the number of deaths in accidents reported in the literature as the indicator for this criterion (Sovacool, 2008). The greater the number of deaths in accidents the history of a power generation option presents, the more concerned the society is about this option. Regarding the economic dimension, we consider as criteria the cost for electricity generation and the overall operational efficiency of the generation plant. There is no doubt that cost is an important criterion. The overall operational efficiency can be considered a means to account for potential externality costs. We can consider that systems with higher operational efficiency tend to require fewer natural resources, produce less waste and cause less environmental impacts. These facts tend to reduce possible undesirable external costs. We take as operational efficiency the product of energy efficiency and the capacity factor, aiming at taking into consideration low thermal efficiencies, intermittency, seasonal variations, etc,

2.3. Data utilized to estimate the impact coefficients Table 1 presents also the variable associated with each criterion and that will allow estimating its corresponding impact coefficient. The necessary data, obtained in the technical literature, must consider the life cycle of the complete production chain for electricity generation. Recently, many studies have been published about energy generation, principally related to emission of greenhouse gases, immobilized area and use of water (Kenny et al., 2010; Fthenakis & Kim, 2009; Evans et al., 2009; IPCC, 2007; Weisser, 2007; Lee at al., 2004; Gagnon et al., 2002). An interesting publication about accidents in the energy sector has been published with the number of fatalities in accidents that has been reported in the technical literature and press (Sovacool (2008, p.1810-1819). Data about cost of electricity generation, thermal and energy efficiencies, and capacity factors are more easily found in the literature. Table 2 presents the sources of data for each criterion, which take into consideration the life cycle of complete production chains of electricity generation. For some specific cases, the chosen data are from Brazil.

3. Calculated impact coefficients for different alternatives of power generation This section presents the calculated impact coefficients, iE, i=1,..,8, as specified in Table 1, for the different alternatives of power generation, namely, coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear, biomass, hydropower, and wind power. The impact coefficient for each criterion is based on the corresponding variable presented in Table 1. In general, the data take into account the whole production chain and life cycle for electricity generation. When that does not occur, it is mentioned in the text. The results present important variation due to different data found in the literature. The uncertainty or variation bars shown in the figures below are due to these data variations, sometimes as large as an order of magnitude. The vertical bar encompasses the maximum and minimum values found in the literature and accompanies all results presented in this section. The horizontal dash indicates the average value of all
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reported data. When only one source of data is available, there is no vertical bar in the figure, and one may not interpret it as certainty. The cost of electricity is an exception since the horizontal dash indicates the cost of electricity generation for each alternative in Brazil.

Table 2 Source of data used for estimating the impact coefficients of different alternatives of electricity generation. All data are based on complete production chain and life cycle analysis. Criterion and variables used to estimate its impact coefficient Global warming - emission of greenhouse gases Source of data* Baldasano et al. (1999, p.3766,3767,3769,3770); Lee at al. (2004, p.91,96); Weisser (2007, p.1550); Gagnon et al. (2002, p.1271); IPCC (2007, p.269,283); Goldemberg & Lucon (2008, p.191); IAEA (1997); Markandya & Wilkinson (2007, p.982); Rashad & Hammad (2000, p.218); Holdren & Smith (2000, p.103). Fthenakis & Kim (2009, p.1471), Gagnon et al. (2002, p.1274,1275), Kenny et al (2010, p.1973), Eletrobras (2000, p.114120), Evans et al. (2009, p.1085) Brasil (2007f, p.190); Cochran & Tsoulfanidis (1999, p. 4, 370); EPE (2009, p.209,213,216); Goldemberg & Lucon (2008, p.192); IAEA (1997); Rashad & Hammad (2000, p.213). Evans et al. (2009, p.1085); Fthenakis & Kim (2010); La Rovere et al. (2010, p.427). Markandya & Wilkinson (2007, p.981,983).

Imobilized area (rea x time) area and time of occupation Use and processing of natural resources (dematerialization) amount of natural resources used for generating electricity Water consumption direct and indirect use of water for generating electricity Radiation, pollution and human health population morbidity due to operation of facilities involved in the electricity generation Safety and risk of very damaging accidents number of deaths due to accidents reported in the literature or press Direct cost of electricity generation $/MWh

Sovacool (2008, p.1810-1819).

Alvim et al., (2007); Benson & Orr (2008); BRASIL (2007b; 2007c; 2007d; 2007e; 2007f); Carvalho & Sauer (2009); Cochran & Tsoulfanidis (1999); Fthenakis & Kim (2009); IAEA (2006a); IPCC (2007); Kenny et al. (2010); Kok (2009); La Rovere et al (2010); Lee et al. (2004); Rafaj & Kypreos (2007), ANEEL (2008, p.30). Alvim et al., (2007); BRASIL (2007b; 2007c; 2007d; 2007e; 2007f); Carvalho & Sauer (2009); Cochran & Tsoulfanidis (1999); Fthenakis & Kim (2009); IAEA (2006a); IPCC (2007); Kenny et al. (2010); Kok (2009); La Rovere et al (2010); Lee et al. (2004); Rafaj & Kypreos (2007).

Energy and operational efficiency thermal efficiency, energy efficiency and capacity factor

* Always take into consideration the life cycle of the complete chain of electricity generation. Situations in which this does not occur are mentioned in the text.

3.1. Emission of greenhouse gases Figure 1 presents the impact coefficient for emission of CO2 to the atmosphere per unit of electricity for several generation alternatives. The results present large variation according to different authors data or specific technology. Coal and natural gas emission data consider different types of CO 2 sequestration systems. Hydro, wind and nuclear power emit CO 2 indirectly. Hydropower plants emit CO2 equivalent due to methane gas generated in the reservoir, and during their construction. Methane gas has a global warming potential 23 times greater than CO2. According to ELETROBRAS (2000, p.113), in average, the Brazilian hydroelectric plants emit 356.88 kg/daykm2 of CO2 and 18.29 kg/daykm2 of methane. Biomass emits some CH4 and its overall emission depends on the type of culture used to generate electricity. Nuclear power emits CO2 during construction and decommissioning (deactivation after its end of life) (ELETROBRAS, 2000; Gagnon et al., 2002; Goldenberg & Lucon, 2008; IPCC 2001). Wind and biomass power are the alternatives that emit less greenhouse gases.

Figure 1 Impact coefficient of equivalent CO2 emissions (global warming) for electricity generation alternatives (1E). 3.2. Immobilized area The immobilized area for energy generation precludes its use for other economic aim and, if it is very large, may affect the regional biodiversity. The latter is an issue for enterprises such hydroelectric dams, wind farms and coal mining. Fthenakis & Kim (2009) introduced the concepts of transformed area (m) and immobilized area over time (myear) for computing direct and indirect use of area for generating energy. The area downtime takes into account both the operating time and the time required to recover the location to its original condition. We assume that larger areas would cause greater environmental, social and economic
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impacts, without questioning the activity itself that is developed, or that area immobilization is in itself an important impact. The recovery time to the sites original condition varies greatly according to the type of ecosystem that had initially existed and to the type of occupation and technology utilized. It is difficulty to establish a procedure to obtain the average recovery time after decommissioning a power plant and the other structures of its production chain (Fthenakis & Kim, 2009, p.1471). Table 3 presents the recovery time utilized to determine the immobilization time (Fthenakis & Kim, 2009; Gagnon et al., 2002; Kenny et al., 2010; Eletrobras, 2000; Evans et al., 2009). The numbers quoted represent simple average values from several figures found in the literature. Nuclear power presents a very large figure compared to other alternatives. It requires a small area for the plant operation and for storing its nuclear waste, however, the time required to store it is very long which increases substantially the immobilization time.

Table 3 Occupation and recovery time for different electricity generation alternatives taking into consideration the life cycle of the complete production chains
Power generation option Biomass Coal Wind Natural gas Hydro (reservoir) Nuclear Oil Occupation and recovery time (years) 40 35 30 35 100 10.000 40

Figure 2 presents the impact coefficient of immobilized area for several power generation alternatives. The occupation area for the different alternatives was obtained in the literature (Fthenakis & Kim, 2009; Gagnon et al., 2002; Kenny et al., 2010; ELETROBRAS, 2000, p.114-120; Evans et al., 2009); the hydropower data, obtained from the Brazilian dams, present the greatest spread. Biomass usually immobilizes a large area but in Brazil, its electricity is co-generated with ethanol and sugar. Only 5 % of the total immobilized area is assigned to the electricity co-generation. Fossil fuel plants require small areas for generating electricity. Nuclear power presents large immobilized area due to its very long occupation time. The impact coefficient result with largest variation is from hydropower.

Figure 2 Impact coefficient of immobilized area for electricity generation alternatives (2E).

3.3. Use and process of natural resources Some environmentalists consider that the use and processing of large amounts of natural resources tend to perturb significantly the environment, and that the impact of any economic activity tends to increase with the amount of used natural resources. They consider that an important measure of sustainability is the amount of natural resources involved in the economic activities, and that it is important to dematerialize the economic activities (Veiga, 2006). The impact of use and processing of energy resources depend, among many factors, on the energy density of the resource. The various fuels have different energy densities and require different processes in each link of its production chain. The sugar cane bagasse (biomass) has a low energy density (0.215 kWh/kg of dry material (BRAZIL, 2007, p.190), then follows the fossil fuels (1.53 kWh/kg for coal, 2.82 kWh/kg for oil, 3.48 kWh/kg for natural gas (EPE, 2009), and 50,000 kWh/kg for nuclear power (Goldemberg & Lucon, 2008). Hydro and wind power do not alter the nature of the natural resource while producing energy and return them to the environment in very similar conditions. The processing and use of biomass, fossil fuels and uranium tend to cause important environmental impacts while the processing of wind and hydro natural resources usually do not. Figure 3 shows the impact coefficient of use and processing of natural resources expressed in terms of kg of material utilized per electricity generated, 3E (kg/MWh). The wind and hydro power are considered to have negligible impact coefficient since they return air and water to the environment almost unchanged. Nuclear power presents very low impact coefficient due to its very high energy density. Fossil fuel power plants present intermediate impact coefficient and biomass present the highest impact with a large variation

depending on the crop utilized as the natural resource. The horizontal dash for biomass represents the value yielded by sugar cane bagasse, the crop utilized in Brazil for generating electricity through co-generation.

Figure 3 Impact coefficient of use and process of natural resources for different electricity generation alternatives (3E).

3.4. Water consumption The water consumption is a good criterion of environmental and social impact due to its overall importance for human and natural life. Generating electricity requires considerable amounts of water throughout its production chain and life cycle. Water can be used (consumed) or used and returned to the environment (circulated). The results presented here include consumed and circulated waters. Fossil fuels, biomass, and nuclear power require water as coolant in their thermal cycles during electricity generation. In hydropower, there is water loss by evaporation, which depends on the size of the dam and local temperature (Evans et al. 2009). Figure 4 summarizes the results of consumption of water. Natural gas present large variation for the impact coefficient, but the highest thermal efficiency of combined-cycle power plants may allow also very low impact coefficients. Biomass presents high water consumption, about 72.9 m3/MWh for the complete life cycle of the production chain. However, in Brazil the biomass electricity is co-generated with sugar and ethanol. We consider that its water consumption is only 5 % of the total consumption, i.e., 3.6 m3/MWh. Coal and nuclear power are the greatest water consumers, oil and hydro power are intermediate consumers, and the biomass co-generation and modern natural gas plants can be considered low water consumers. Wind power

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requires virtually no water for electricity generation when compared to other alternatives (Fthenakis & Kim, 2010).

Figure 4 Impact coefficient of water consumption for different electricity generation alternatives (4E).

3.5. Social impacts Among the several concerns of modern society, we can point out diseases caused by the normal operation of the industrial facilities, which emit pollutants to the environment. Emission of gases to the environment by fossil fuels and biomass plants may cause respiratory diseases to individuals living in their vicinity; radiation and radioactive contaminants coming out from nuclear power plants are too concerns of the public. To take into consideration this type of concerns, we consider as impact coefficient in the social dimension the morbidity of population per unit of energy generated. The public is also concerned with the safety of industrial facilities and the risk of accidents of severe consequences. We consider as another impact coefficient in the social dimension the number of fatalities that has occurred in accidents. Sovacool (2008) has published an interesting article reporting all accidents that occurred in the last hundred years in the energy industry, in which there are brief description of the accident, location and number of deaths among other data. Figure 5 presents the impact coefficient of morbidity for different alternatives of electricity generation. The data present large dispersion for those alternatives based on fuel combustion due to use of more or less sophisticated systems to control the emissions. Respiratory diseases are the primary source of morbidity. Nuclear, hydro and wind power alternatives present very low morbidity coefficients. It seems

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natural to the public that hydro and wind power do not cause morbidity to individuals in its vicinity. On the other hand, nuclear has low impact coefficient but the public perception is that possible potential radiation disease may affect their state of health in the future.

Figure 5 Impact coefficient of morbidity for different electricity generation alternatives (5E).

Figure 6 shows the number of fatalities due to important accidents that occurred in the history of the electricity generation. By important accidents, we mean those that caused fatalities or financial damages greater than a million of dollars (Sovacool, 2008). Some few accidents caused a large number of fatalities and the majority caused a small number. Hydropower caused in three accidents over 171,216 fatalities until today and the other alternatives, coal, nuclear and oil, with 60 to 70 accidents each, caused 5099, 4100 and 3330 fatalities, respectively (Sovacool, 2008). Natural gas has caused less than 537 fatalities in about 80 important accidents until today, and biomass and wind power do not present important figures (Sovacool, 2008). Regarding hydropower and nuclear power generation, an important note should be made regarding fatalities in accidents. With respect to hydropower, one accident, the Shimantan accident that occurred in China in 1975, caused 171,000 direct and indirect deaths. Similarly, with respect to nuclear power, the Chernobyl accident that occurred in the former Soviet Union in 1986 caused 4056 direct and indirect deaths (Sovacool, 2008). No other accidents of such magnitudes occurred in the history of these two generation alternatives, and based on the current safety standards, they can be considered unlikely to occur again today. If we exclude these accidents, we obtain Figure 7. In this case, hydro and nuclear power present lower impact coefficients of fatalities in accidents than fossil fuel power plants.

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Figure 6 Impact coefficient of fatalities in accidents for different electricity generation alternatives (6E).

Figure 7 Impact coefficient of fatalities in accidents for different electricity generation alternatives without the Chernobyl and Shimantan accidents (6E).

3.6. Economic impacts The first impact coefficient considered in the economic dimension is the cost to generate electricity ($/MWh). Figure 8 shows the electricity cost of different power generation alternatives. The data spread for generation cost is large and the horizontal dash for each alternative shows the Brazilian cost as reported by
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countrys national operator of the electric system. The data spread indicates that, in principle, all alternatives may be competitive if operation is carried out efficiently and with low cost. Another impact coefficient in the economic dimension is the overall operational efficiency of the electricity generation system as an indication of externality costs and shown in Figure 9.

Figure 8 Impact coefficient of cost for different electricity generation alternatives (7E).

Figure 9 Impact coefficient of operational inefficiency for different electricity generation alternatives (8E).

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In order to facilitate the analysis and comparison with the other impact coefficients, we consider the overall operational inefficiency rather than the efficiency. In this way, the larger the impact coefficient, the greater is the consequence to the environment, society and economy. Figure 9 shows the coefficient of operational inefficiency for the different generation alternatives. Since the efficiency is the product of energy efficiency and capacity factor, the fossil fuels and nuclear alternatives present similar results because they are all based on steam cycles with similar thermal efficiencies. The exception is natural gas because of its larger thermal efficiency. Wind power presents a high inefficiency due to its low capacity factor and hydropower presents the lowest operational inefficiency.

4. Conclusions In this work, we obtained impact coefficients for different power generation alternatives due to different criteria involving environmental, social and economic dimensions. The electricity generation alternatives considered were biomass, coal, natural gas, oil, hydro, nuclear, and wind power, and the set of criteria considered included emission of greenhouse gases, immobilized area over time, water consumption, use and processing of natural resources, population morbidity, fatalities in accidents, cost of electricity and operational inefficiency. The data were obtained in the literature and take into account the complete production chain and life cycle of all alternatives. Since the data presented important variation, we included in the results the average, maximum and minimum values of each impact coefficients for the different power generation alternatives. The impact coefficient results are presented in figures, and can easily be used by analysts for different types of evaluation. For global warming, coal and oil present the highest impacts and biomass and wind, the lowest impacts. Coal, oil and natural gas present the largest data variation. For immobilized area over time, hydropower presents the highest impact, nuclear, biomass and wind present intermediate impacts, and fossil fuels present the lowest impacts. Hydropower presents the largest variation, and for biomass, we considered only 5 % of total immobilized area as due to electricity generation since it usually occurs associated with cogeneration or other economic activities. For use and processing of natural resources, biomass presents the highest impact and result variation; wind, hydro and nuclear power present the lowest impacts and smaller variation. For water consumption, coal and nuclear present the highest impacts, wind and biomass present the lowest impacts, and natural gas, intermediate impact, but the largest variation due to different type of technology reported for electricity generation. For population morbidity, coal and oil present the highest impacts and variation; nuclear, hydro and wind present the lowest impacts.

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For the number of fatalities in accidents it is important to analyze the case of hydropower. If the accident of Shimantan is considered, this option is by far the one with the largest impact coefficient. Nuclear power presents number of fatalities similar to the coal and oil alternatives. If the Shimantan and Chernobyl accidents are excluded from the data by assuming that they were unique, occurred in very special conditions, and that other accidents of this magnitude did not occur again in the history of the hydro and nuclear power options, the results are different. Coal and oil present the largest number of fatalities, nuclear power and hydropower present lower number of fatalities and wind and biomass present the lowest. Natural gas presents an intermediate number of fatalities. For cost of electricity generation all alternatives present close figures, natural gas seems to be the most competitive one, but the cost data present large variation for all options. For energy operational inefficiency, biomass, oil, nuclear, coal and wind present the highest inefficiency, and hydropower present the lowest inefficiency but the largest variation.

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