Socioeconomic costs of replacing nuclear power with fossil and renewable energy in Taiwan

Abstract

Economic analysis is essential for developing sustainable energy, especially low-carbon nuclear and renewable energy. Therefore, this study attempted to provide a comprehensive evaluation on the social costs of nuclear, coal, gas, solar photovoltaic and wind energy in life cycle aspect, and compared these results with the European and Japanese estimates for verification. The atmospheric dispersion simulation results show that a cumulative effective dose of radionuclides equal to the radionuclides released during the first 19 days of the Fukushima Daiichi disaster would exceed the regulatory limit of 1 mSv/year for part of the residents living near the sites. The results of meta-analysis of life cycle social costs show nuclear power has the lowest private costs among all energy. Regarding external costs, only wind energy is competitive with nuclear in most cases. Moreover, replacing Nuke No.1–3 with coal and gas would cause an estimated 460 and 255 premature deaths annually, respectively, totaling 715 life losses per year in Taiwan. In sum, with decreasing land carrying capacity by population growth, the environmental and social-economic feasibility of energy development need further assessment with respect to the international protocols for sustainable development goals and climate change mitigation targets.