The Hidden Costs of Utility Power

The American Solar Energy Society did a study in 1989 evaluating hidden costs of fossil fuel and nuclear related energy. The costs are hidden because the sale price does not reflect the costs related to damages done by the use of fossil fuel and nuclear energy. The cost of a barrel of oil does not factor in the air pollution caused by burning it. The cost of storing nuclear waste is not included in the cost of nuclear power, because we haven’t paid for an adequate storage method yet. Who will ultimately pay these costs? Utility customers will in the form of rates, which are predicted to rise by up to 400 percent in the next 10 years. All of us, sooner or later, pay for these costs. We cannot avoid them, we can only pass them on to our children. The only way to avoid creating these costs is by using clean, renewable energy sources like solar power. The health and agricultural costs of pollution are very significant, as this table shows.

The Sun Home solar system eliminates their utility bill. They are also saving $3,715 in hidden costs (based on the average hidden cost of $743 per person) per year. You cannot ignore these hidden costs. We cannot avoid them, the costs are compounded the longer we ignore them. Keep in mind that these hidden costs figures are more than ten years old. The actual costs of burning fossil fuels and using nuclear power are higher than these estimates. The following excerpt from Home Power magazine (June 1998), explains these costs and outlines how we can reduce them.

Hidden Cost Classification	Minimum in Billion $ per year	Maximum in Billion $ per year	Average in Billion $ per year	Hidden Cost per US resident in $ per year
Subsidies to energy corporations	$43.3	$55.2	$49.3	$197
Health Costs	$11.8	$82.0	$46.9	$188
Military	$14.6	$54.0	$34.3	$137
Employment	$30.6	$30.6	$30.6	$122
Radioactive Waste	$4.3	$31.2	$17.8	$71
Crop Loss	$2.0	$7.5	$5.0	$20
Corrosion	$2.0	$2.0	$2.0	$8
Totals	$109.1	$262.5	$185.8	$743

“While this info is surely out of date, it does show the magnitude of the problem. I'd like to quote Michael Nicklas in the ASES report where he states, ‘Our free market economy operates best when both the buyer and the seller hae complete knowledge on which choice will benefit him the most. With energy, this is obviously not the case. How many people know that sulfur dioxide from just our coal burning plants is costing American $82 billion dollars per year in additional health costs? How many American farmers are aware that they are annually losing $7.5 billion due to reduced crop yields caused by air pollution? And, how many people are really aware that nuclear waste and decommissioning costs (which for the most part, we have not seen yet) are the equivalent of $31 billion per year?’ Here are some things we each can do on our own, without help from the government or cooperation from the utilities. Conservation can be practiced by everyone. Whether you make your own power or buy it from the grid, conservation saves energy. Implement conservation techniques in your home. Install efficient lighting. Turn off unused appliances. Find and isolate those ‘phantom loads.’ When you buy an appliance, make efficiency your prime criteria. If each of us practices conservation, then I estimate we could reduce America’s electric bill by half. And this means not only half of the money spent, but half of the environmental damage. Conservation offers immediate, short-term relief until we can mass-implement non-polluting renewable energy sources. Perhaps the best thing any of us can do as individuals is to actually use renewable energy sources. And the best place to start is at home. …Every time one of us puts up a PV [solar] panel, a hydro turbine, or a wind generator we are directly helping solve America’s energy problems. Every time a renewable energy source is used, then power that would have been produced by combustion or nuclear reaction is instead made by clean renewable methods. It’s not often we get a real chance to change this world and stay at home at the same time. Put up a PV panel, harness that creek, put that wind machine up!”

—Richard Perez, Homepower Magazine