The Full Costs of Electricity Provision: A new NEA report

Electricity production, transport and consumption affect every facet of life in the advanced market economies of the countries that make up the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) and the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Market prices and production costs account for an important share of the overall economic impacts of electricity. Over at least the past two decades, however, there has been growing recognition that this market value of electricity is not the whole story and that the social and environmental impacts of electricity provision are affecting individuals, economies and societies in ways that have not been captured by market prices. Concerns about anthropogenic climate change have strongly reinforced such a stance. The impacts of local pollution from electricity generation on health and longevity, as well as the fear of major accidents on lives and ecosystems, have also been weighing heavily on policy-makers and on the public for many years. Employment and technological developments are additional issues that have come to the fore in discussions on electricity generation and provision. It was with the objective of examining the true market value of electricity that the NEA recently released The Full Costs of Electricity Provision