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Quantifying the health and environmental benefits of wind power to natural gas

journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-08, 23:28 authored by Donald McCubbin, Benjamin SovacoolBenjamin Sovacool
How tangible are the costs of natural gas compared to the benefits of one of the fastest growing sources of electricity – wind energy – in the United States? To answer this question, this article calculates the benefits of wind energy derived from two locations: the 580 MW wind farm at Altamont Pass, CA, and the 22 MW wind farm in Sawtooth, ID. Both wind farms have environmental and economic benefits that should be considered when evaluating the comparative costs of natural gas and wind energy. Though there are uncertainties within the data collected, for the period 2012–2031, the turbines at Altamont Pass will likely avoid anywhere from $560 million to $4.38 billion in human health and climate related externalities, and the turbines at Sawtooth will likely avoid $18 million to $104 million of human health and climate-related externalities. Translating these negative externalities into a cost per kWh of electricity, we estimate that Altamont will avoid costs of 1.8–11.8 cents/kWh and Sawtooth will avoid costs of 1.5–8.2 cents/kWh.

History

Publication status

  • Published

Journal

Energy Policy

ISSN

0301-4215

Publisher

Pergamon

Volume

53

Page range

429-441

Department affiliated with

  • SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit Publications

Full text available

  • No

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2016-01-19

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