Environmental externalities and its influence on the thermo-ecological cost

Transcription

1 Int. J. of Sustainable Water and Environmental Systems Volume 4, No. 1 (2012) pp Environmental externalities and its influence on the thermo-ecological cost Wojciech Stanek, Lucyna Czarnowska* Institute of Thermal Technology Silesian University of Technology, Gliwice, Poland wojciech.stanek@polsl.pl, lucyna.czarnowska@polsl.pl Abstract At present when depletion of non-renewable natural resources becomes still real option, rational management becomes more and more important. In addition, energy conversion systems based on non-renewable resources generate pollution which causes damage to human health, building facilities, crops, land etc. In other words these transformation leads to some adverse external effects. The influence of human activities on the depletion of natural resources can be measured using the thermo-ecological cost (TEC). This cost, which is expressed in energy (exergy) units, is defined as the cumulative exergy consumption of non-renewable resources that affect every stage of manufacturing process of particular consumer products. The TEC takes into account the additional consumption of non-renewable resources arising from the need to compensate the adverse effects on the environment caused by the aggressive waste emission. In order to evaluate these negative impacts the external environmental cost of pollutants is calculated by basing it on the results of EcosSenseWeb software. In this paper the focus is put on the part of thermoecological cost related to air pollutants emission. The authors discuss two methods of TEC evaluation. The first one is based on the evaluation of additional requirements of non-renewable resources due to losses caused by emission of harmful substances to the natural environment (the thermoecological cost of environmental losses). The second method applies abatement cost with the assumption that the wastes are abated to the zero level with the best available techniques (the thermoecological cost of waste removal). The detailed theoretical background of TEC of waste substances and the simplified methods for its evaluations are presented. Both methods are used for practical calculations. Moreover, results of example calculations based on both methods are discussed. Additionally, the index of sustainability (SDE x ) for abatement installations is proposed. Keywords: thermo-ecological cost, externalities, sustainability index 1. Introduction The activity and development of our present civilisation are possible mainly due to the extraction of non-renewable natural resources from the nature. The depletion of natural resources accumulated in the earth in the form of chemical energy of fuels and valuable chemical substances formed naturally as minerals is accelerated by uncontrolled growth of consumption. The worst case scenario of the activity of consumptionist society could be the completely degraded planet where all nonrenewable resources are exhausted. In general the resources can * Corresponding author. Tel.: wojciech.stanek@polsl.pl 2012 International Association for Sharing Knowledge and Sustainability. DOI: /swes be divided into minerals and fuels. It should be remembered, one can partly reuse the mineral raw materials in recycling processes. The used energy resources are always accompanied with degradation of their exergy. The last several years proceeded under the domination of financial markets. The monetary attitude to the major branches of our life is considered as a proper indicator of our well-being. Consumption growth is treated by economists as an impulse for economic development; moreover, the problem of depletion of natural resources is considered as marginal and the ecological aspects of our activity is taken into account only during harmful substances measurement and control process [1]. In any way, tools of classical economy are unable to assess the value of wealth accumulated in the natural resources, for 51

2 example answer the question what is the cost of any mine in the ground or what is the cost of fresh air etc. Costs of raw materials, which are expressed in monetary units, should be clearly named as prices, because their values are mostly a result of the market game, speculation and stock exchange, political influence. For sure, this value is not based on any physical law that governs the management of use of these resources. Furthermore, some of economy authorities still maintain that one should not take care of the exhaustion of non-renewable fuels because it can be replaced by renewable sources of energy or by inexhaustible resources. In a book of Jarred [2] there are many examples of ancient civilizations that collapsed because they had exhausted local natural resources. For example the act of cutting of forests in Easter Islands, the depletion of fresh water in Central America, the depletion of agricultural area in South-East Asia causes the collapse of different civilisations. However in the opinion of authors, the awareness of ancient civilizations that collapsed because of the depletion of local natural resources and the existing possibility of exhaustion of present non-renewable resources should lead to the sober conclusion, that still for many years our economy will be depended on the non-renewable natural resources of fuels. Nowadays, there is no proof that technology based on renewable sources can work independently. Figure 1 shows an example in trends of depletion of primary energy of coal; should it be recognised as the first symptoms described by Jarred? It can be observed from Fig. 1 that the level of availability of oil and gas remains constant; however, a sharp decrease in the availability of coal appeared near the year Indicator of resources per production for the fuel decreased, in the case of coal it falls down over presented time ( ) from 204 to 119 years. It means that during 7 years of the assessment the estimated coal availability decreased by 85 years. economy. However, not only the specific cost is often the subject of interest but the process of their formulation. For this reason the cumulative calculus should to be applied. The calculation of the cumulative coefficient was initiated by Chapman, who introduced the concept of energy cost [10-12]. Additionally, the theory of energy cost of useful products was developed by Boustead and Hancock [13]. Moreover, Szargut introduced the concept of cumulative exergy consumption (CExC) [14,15] and then the thermo-ecological cost (TEC) [16,17]. Finally, the objective criterion of ecological economy in the form of the Thermo-Ecological Cost (TEC) was proposed by Szargut. Exergy can be applied as a measure of quality of natural capital [4-9] and cumulative calculus as a tool to express the formation of real costs based on physical laws. However, the complexity of interconnections among production branches of economy deal with very complicated structure of the proposed TEC. In other words, it requires developing the TEC method decomposition for particular product fabrication process including all links within the economy system and the emission of harmful substances related to these branches. This decomposition of the TEC analysis is presented by authors [18]. The inclusion of impacts of harmful substances emission is one of the most difficult part of the algorithm of TEC determination. So far, in the algorithm based on the Szargut proposal, the problem of TEC of waste substances was solved by simplified method that is based on monetary costs of externalities [6,19-21]. To avoid disadvantages of selected method, the authors propose a more advanced algorithm to evaluate the thermoecological cost of air pollutants emission. First of all, in this paper, the theoretical background of calculation of TEC resulting from air pollutants emissions is presented in details. Second, results of calculation are presented, based on two methods of TEC of air pollutants emission. The influence of chosen method on the results of total TEC burdening fabrication of selected consumer products is shown. Additionally, in this work the new index, characterising the environment efficiency of any abatement installation, is proposed. This index can be used in order to choose or to optimise abatements from the point of view of the economy of non-renewable resources. Finally, results of are presented. 2. Exergetic evaluation of environmental cost of natural resources 2.1. The idea of thermoecological cost Fig. 1. Resources of primary fuels based on information from BP [3] It is obvious that the classical economy will be the basic criterion for the decision makers, and that we cannot force the developing countries to slow down their economic growth; however, in the face of the possibility of exhaustion of the basic energy sources of our planet the tools towards an ecological economy should be developed. This ecological criterion should become as important as that one based on classical economy. Moreover, ecological criterion should be provided together with classical economy during design and operation of all production processes. Exergy as a measure of resource quality of primary energy carriers and non-energetic minerals is commonly applied in literature, for example [4-9]. Exergy can be the measure of specific physical costs in environmental economy as opposite to monetary cost in According to Szargut [6,19-21] the thermo-ecological cost (TEC) is defined as cumulative consumption of non-renewable exergy connected with the fabrication of a particular useful product. Additionally, in TEC analysis the consumption resulting from the necessity of compensation of environmental losses caused by rejection of harmful substances to the environment is included. The index of operational thermoecological cost is determined by a set of equations of thermoecological cost balance. The idea of forming the equation of TEC is presented in Fig. 2 and it takes the following form [6,19-21]: a ij coefficient of the consumption of the i-th national product per unit of the j-th major product, a rj coefficient of the consumption of the r-th imported product per unit of the j-th major product, (1) 52

3 b sj f ij i, j r exergy of the s-th non-renewable natural resource immediately consumed in the process under consideration per unit of the j-th product, coefficient of by-production of the i-th product per unit of the j-th major product, thermo-ecological cost of the i-th, j-th product, specific thermoecological cost of the r-th imported good, requirement for natural resources exergy to compensate or to avoid the environmental losses resulting from operation of j-th production process. The last part of the Eq.(1) includes the additional expenses of cumulative exergy of non-renewable resources arising from the formation of waste products within the j-th production process ( j0 j0 " j0 ) and this paper is especially focused on this part of the balance. First of all, the harmful products should be subject to purifying in abatement (Fig. 2 element 2) which requires consumption of additional quantities of cumulative exergy: (2) cumulative exergy consumption of non-renewable resources caused by removing of k-th aggressive product from wastes in abatement, amount of k-th waste product abated from total k-th waste product. A residual amount of harmful substance k, in other words product leaving element 2, Fig. 2, is transferred to the environment and caused damage and losses there. The additional thermoecological cost arising from loses caused by not abated harmful substances and burdensome the j-th production branch could be described as: total expenditure of resources exergy for compensation loses in environment, total amount of k-th waste product generated in j-th production branch. The exergetic cost of compensation can be expressed based on externalities (see section 2.2), which can be easily modelled using EcoSense [22-26]. For this reason, the second way to express the thermoecological cost of waste substances rejected to the environment is the method based on harmfulness indices (see section 2.3). The exergetic abatement cost is determined based on the mass and energy for abatement installation; however, factor is based on indices of externalities presented in Section 2.3. (3) Fig. 2. Diagram of thermoecological cost 2.2. The thermoecological cost of waste harmful substances based on externalities According to Szargut [6,21] the approximate method is used to estimate the ratio. In proposed approach, the cumulative consumption of non-renewable resources arising from compensation of damages occurring as a result of waste products emission is based on monetary coefficient for assessment of harmful damage [19,21] Both ratio coefficient are calculated for Polish conditions. B GDP and ; (4) exergy extracted from the domestic non-renewable natural resources per year, (national) gross domestic product, 53

4 annual production of the k-th aggressive component of waste product rejected to the environment in the considered region, monetary factor of harmfulness of k-th substances. Waste products rejected to the surrounding environment from industrial activities caused adverse effects on the society, in the air, water and land on which people, animals and plants live. The same amount and types of the emissions of harmful pollutants give different effects at different locations, because it is strongly related with many factors such as population density, site-specific meteorological data or infrastructure. Harmful substances including emissions could be divided into two groups. The first group contains substances such as sulphur dioxides, nitrates and particulate matters, which affect in adverse manner on surrounding environment. The second group includes greenhouse gasses, which are also emitted. However, it is not proved that they influence in adverse way to the environment. The term, externalities related to the energy production system can be defined as the cost of damaged resulting from the harmful waste substances emitted into the environment and cost, which is not accounted for. In other words, external costs resulting from certain damages are not reflected in the market prices of the products. However, governments and thus the industry company start taking these costs into consideration in management decisions as a result of national and European laws. The EcoSenseWeb Software based on the ExernE project and developed by Krewitt s team [22,23] has been used, which applies the Impact Pathway Approach, in order to estimate the environmental damages resulting from airborne pollutants. Nowadays, it is the most extensive and developed program supported by a rich data base for the European area. The assessment of impacts is based on the Impact Pathway Approach (IPA) developed in the ExternE (Externalities of Energy) project, funded by the European Commission, and it provides data for an integrated impact assessment associated with pollutants in European countries. The IPA starts with the quantities of various pollutants emitted at a certain location in one of sub-regions in Europe or six regions outside Europe. In the second step, using the atmospheric pollutant transport module, which takes into account wind speed and direction, baseline (current) concentrations of pollutants and chemical transformation of pollutants, the marginal changes in the ambient conditions are modelled. The third step consists of the impact assessment of damages such as impacts on health, building materials, crops and land, due to harmful pollutants. For this purpose, the doseresponse function is used, which relates the quantity of pollutants with the physical effect on the receptors, e.g. number of hospitalizations. Then, the results from the three steps are aggregated and converted to monetary values, in order to obtain the external cost [25,26]. Using present state of knowledge regarding to the effect of harmful substances emitted into the environment, the greatest impact on human health is. Externalities obtained for sources located in Olsztyn are related to human health (91,37%), crops(1,07%), buildings material (3,44%) and biodiversity losses due to acidification and eutrophication (4,12%) [26]. The externalities were calculated [25] for the three Polish cities, which have the following coordinates: Gliwice (18º33 E, 50º21 N); Olsztyn (20º27 E, 53º47 N) and Szczecin (14º42 E, 53º26 N), these three cities are located in three different subregions of Poland (Fig. 3). Additionally the results for Warsaw (21 3 E, N) carried out, in order to show the relation within one sub-region. The details of modelling of externalities were presented in [25,26]. The results from EcoSenseWeb Software depend on background of emission, which is related to real concentration of pollutants and it is presented using grid in sub-region of Europe. Fig. 3 shows a km 2 grid of Poland, three sub-regions in Poland and selected cities. Table 1 shows, the external cost of each pollutant for these cities obtained by EcoSenceWeb Software and ratio, as exergetic cost of compensation environmental losses due to these pollutants. In order to calculated ratio was used the following values B=2959 PJ/(year 2008 ) assessed on the basis of [25,27] and GDP=363,8 mld 2008 current price [28,29]. Fig km 2 grid of Poland with the highest concentration of pollutants in background and cities selected for calculation Table 1. External cost of pollutants, and exergetic cost of compensation environmental losses due to these pollutants. City 2008/kg MJ/kg SO 2 NO x PPM SO 2 NO x PPM Olsztyn Warsaw Gliwice Szczecin Average The thermoecological cost of wastes based on coefficients of damage Applying the method of determination of the TEC with the application of coefficients of damage [16] the balance Eq.1 can be presented in the following form: yik+zikpkj i; MJexkgj (5) Coefficients of damages are equal to the additional consumption of i-th product resulting from rejection of k-th harmful substance and are related to the losses appearing in the following sectors: industrial and manufacture products, agriculture and forestry, human health. The coefficient of damage, are expressed as follows [16]: ; ; (6) coefficient of damage in units of additional requirements for i-th product per unit of the 54

5 k-th aggressive component rejected to the natural environment, additional annual demand or decrease of production of i-th product resulting from effects of rejection of k-th harmful substances, However, the coefficient of damages can be transformed to the following form [16]: X i, Y i, Z i α ik, β ik, γ ik ; ; (7) additional annual demand or decrease of production of i-th product resulting negative effects of harmful substances, coefficients α ik, β ik, γ ik express the share of X i, Y i, Z i resulting from impact of k-th harmful waste product. The coefficients should fulfil the conditions: ; ; (8) Introducing = into (5) the balance of TEC can be simplified to the form: (9) (10) additional total consumption of the i-th product in the j-th branch arising from the harmful effects of aggressive waste products generated in j-th production sector, additional unit consumption of the i-th useful good related to unit emission of the k-th pollutant ( ) Considering basic harmful substances generated in the process of energy conversion systems including SO 2, NO x and particulate matters (PM), the rate can be written as follows: (11) Applying relations (6) the factor of total additional requirements of i-th product for the compensation of k-th waste, it can be transformed into the following form: (12) absolute increase in the demanding for i-th useful product as a result of total annual emissions of k- th pollutant, covering all types of damage relating to indicators. Equation (12) leads to the formula: (13) The determination of individual components of Eq.13 can be called as indicators of division of the various types of damages. Eq.13. in dimensionless form is as follows: (14) The division of damages using Eq.13 or Eq.14 is very difficult due to lack of knowledge of the exact values of,,. However, using EcoSense model, monetary division can be determined; results are shown in Table 2. The total rate of losses in the environment (in monetary units) burdening the k-th substances discharge into the environment can be separated into components similarly to indices : human health losses, crops losses and biodiversity losses due to acidification and eutrophication, buildings materials losses. Table 2. Monetary division of harmfulness 2008/kg k th substances Group of impacts Monetary Harmful substances k indices SO 2 NO X PM Total Buildings material Crops and biodiversity losses due to acidification and eutrophication Human health Additionally, monetary allocation indicators complies the formula: or in dimensionless form: (15) (16) Determination of indices by means of increased demanding for useful products in Eq.13 is practically impossible. Because of the value of monetary coefficients which are dependent on mentioned indices of increased consumption. Eq.13 can be approximately exchange by the Eq.15 and the mentioned condition should be also fulfilled. The table 2 shows the monetary indices of harmfulness and their dimensionless value. These indices are determined based on EcoSenseWeb [24-26] and they are applied in the algorithm described by Eq.5-18 to calculate thermoecological cost of harmful substances defined in Eq. 4. Assuming that the proportions between the rates contained in Eq.14 and the indicators contained in Eq.16 are similar, indicators can be defined as: (17) The Eq.17 refers to the losses in the area of industry. Using the developed algorithm, indices,, can be calculated from formula: ; ; (18) Presented assumptions allow to take into account the thermoecological cost of harmful substances in its complete form Eq.5 with: - monetary indicators of harmfulness with allocation between types of harmful effects (x, y, z), - use of i-th material or semi-finished product necessary for abatement to zero level of the k-th waste product. It is obvious that abatement of harmful substances require less cumulative exergy of non-renewable resources than it is necessary to compensate the losses caused by rejection of this harmful effluent directly to the environment without purification. The higher is the difference between the exergy cost of environmental losses and exergy cost of operation the abatement installation the more justified is such abatement. In other words the ratio of exergy cost resulting from operation of 55

6 removal installation to exergy cost of environmental losses from the sustainability point of view should be as much lower than 1 as far it is justified from economical point of view. Based on the above argumentation the author proposed the index of sustainability of removal installation for k-th waste in the following form: (19) considered goods, the range of changes in the cost resulting from the consumption of raw materials and semifinished products covers a range of 0.04% -2.3%. Analysing the ranges of thermoecological cost of pollutants and abatement cost it can be easily observed that the ratio for all the products is less than 1. exergetic abatement cost of k-th substance, TEC of k-th waste substance. 3. Results of example calculations The calculations based on the algorithm presented in section 2 is carried out. The results for selected consumer goods are presented in table 3 and concern as follows: thermoecological cost of considered product without consideration of rejection of harmful substances to the natural environment. This means that the factor included only the cumulated exergy of nonrenewable resources burdening the consumption of raw materials and semi-finished products in considered production branches, thermoecological cost resulting from the necessity of compensation or prevention losses caused by the rejection of particular k-th substance. The expenditures for compensation or prevention are expressed as the additional cumulative exergy consumption of non-renewable exergy. The additional cumulative exergy consumption is determined by the method presented in Section 2.3, k = SO 2, NO X, PM, sum of the thermoecological cost burdening particular harmful substances, (20) abatement cost of k-th substance, which algorithm is presented in 2.3. Additionally it is assumed that the k- th substance is abated to the zero level and the resources expenditure for the abatement results from the best available technique, sum of abatement cost burdening particular waste substances, (21) abatement cost of CO 2 based on assumption that the CO 2 removal is realized with the absorption in MEA. Moreover, in Fig.4 the detailed structure of thermoecological cost of electricity generated in coal fired power plant is presented. These calculations are done with assumption of average efficiency of electricity generation in Poland and taken into account the typical composition of Polish hard coal. It can be observed that the thermoecological cost resulting from compensation losses in the environment with regard to the cumulative cost of the exergy consumption of nonrenewable resources arising from the consumption of raw materials and intermediate goods is in range from about 0.2% in the case of domestic natural gas and sulphur to 12% for electricity. Share of thermoecological cost of harmful substances in the total cost increases moving in the direction of the branch, where goods are produced with a greater degree of processing. Abatement cost is less burden by the cumulative energy consumption than thermoecological cost. In case of Fig. 4. Structure of thermoecological cost of electricity Thermoecological cost structure for selected products as electricity is shown in Figure 4. The ratio of for electricity is 40% otherwise it can be explain that for generation every 1MJ electricity is required 1.23 MJ of exergy consumption of non-renewable resources in order to get rid of CO2 generated in power plants. 4. Summary and conclusions The paper discussed problems of determining the cost of disposal of burdensome thermoecological harmful substances. The method of determining the cost based on thermo monetary indicators of harmfulness and based on the exergy cost resulting from expenditures in purification systems is discussed. The method of determining the thermoecological cost of removal was used to determine the approximate value of thermoecological cost of CO 2. Since the CO 2 emissions from burning fossil fuels is much greater than the emissions of other substances considered in this study, taking into account the thermoecological cost of CO 2 can have a significant impact on the final results of calculations of thermoecological cost indices of useful products. Moreover, the presented results of calculations show that the removal of CO 2 is highly burdened with the cumulative exergy consumption of non-renewable resources. Thermoecological index cost of CO 2 disposal compared to the cumulative exergy consumption of non-renewable resources arising from the demand for raw materials and semi-finished products in manufacturing industries is at the comparable level. For considering set of useful products the ratio of these indices reaches values up to 41%. The main conclusion resulting from this part of investigation can be formulated as follows: from the point of view of the depletion of non-renewable resources, the introduction of removing CO 2 should be analysed with particular care, because this technology is very resource intensive. Additionally it has been shown that introduction of CO 2 removal requires much more non-renewable resources then is needed for the other harmful substances, which are taken into account. 56

7 PRODUCT res Table 3. SO2 NOx Results of calculation of TEC with inclusion of thermoecological or abatement cost of waste products PM THERMOECOLOGICAL COST SO2 NOx PM CO2 CO 2 res res Coal Natural gas Electricity Coke Pig iron Steam coal Bof steel Electrical steel Semi-finished products - COS Sulphur (national) Copper-elect Cement Aluminium Electrolysis Aluminium ingots

8 Additionally, the index of environmental sustainability was introduced. The removal of the substances such as SO 2, NO x, PM in case of compensation requires smaller expenditures of cumulative exergy of non-renewable resources than losses of considered substances in the environment. indicator can be called "environmental sustainable index" for the installation of purification and its meaning is as follows: - purification of k-th substance is justified if <1. Otherwise, the expenditure of non-renewable exergy necessary to compensate environmental losses would be less than the required expenditure of non-renewable exergy for abatement of waste substance and in this case the abatement makes no sense, - if we analyse different techniques of removing the k-th pollutant, the one should be chosen for which the index has the lower value. References [1] Minister of Environment Regulation of 20 December 2005 on the emission standards of installation (Dz.U nr 260 poz. 2181) (in Polish) [2] Diamond J.R.: Collapse., How societes choose to fail or succeed. Viking Press, New York 2005 [3] [4] Finneveden G., Ostlund P., Exergies of natura resources in lifecycle assessment and other applications, Energy, Vol. 22, No. 9, [5] Sciubba, E., Beyond thermoeconomics? The concept of Extended Exergy Accounting and its application to the analysis and design of thermal systems. Exergy Int. J., Vol.1., [6] Szargut J., Ziębik A., Stanek W., Depletion of the Unrestorable Natural Exergy Resources as a Measure of the Ecological Cost, Energy, Conversion and Management 42, [7] Valero A., Botero E. An exergetic assessment of natural mineral capital (1): Reference environment, a thermodynamic model for s degradated, Proc. Conf. ECOS 2002, Berlin [8] Valero A., Botero E., An assessment of the Earth s clean fossil exergy capital based on Exergy Abatement Cost. Proc. Conf. ECOS 2002, Berlin [9] Wall, G., Gong M. On exergy and sustainable development, Exergy Int. J., Vol.1., [10] Chapman P.F., Energy costs: a review of methods. Energy Policy. June 1974 pp [11] Chapman P.F., Leach G., Slesser M., The energy cost of fuels. Energy Policy. September 1974 pp [12] Chapman P.F., The energy cost of materials. Energy Policy. March 1975 pp [13] Boustead I., Hancock G.F., Handbook of industrial energy analysis, Ellis Horwood Publisher, [14] Szargut J., Analiza egzergochłonności skumulowanej. Archiwum Energetyki nr 3, [15] Szargut J., Analysis of cumulative exergy consumption. Energy Research, 1987, No 4, pp [16] Szargut J., Application of exergy for the determination of ecological costs, Bull. Pol. Acad. Sci., Techn., No 7-8, 1986 [17] Szargut J., Depletion of unrestorable natural exergy resources. Bulletin of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Vol. 45, No. 2, [18] Stanek W., Czarnowska L., Analysis of partial thermoecological cost of selected energy carriers. Sci. Bull. of Poznan Technical University 2011 (accepted for publication). [19] Stanek W., Iterative Method to Evaluate the Ecological Cost of Imported Goods. International Journal Applied Thermodynamics, Vol. 4 (No.4), [20] Stanek W., Method of evaluation of ecological effects in thermal processes with the application of exergy analysis. Silesian University of Technology Press, 2009 (in Polish). [21] Szargut J., Exergy method, technical and ecological applications. Southampton, Boston: WIT Press, [22] Bickel P, Friedrich R., ExternE Externalities of Energy, Methodology Update. European Commission, [23] Krewitt W, Trukenmueller A, Mayerhofer P., et al. ECOSENSE - An integrated tool for environmental impact analysis. in: Space and Time in Environmental Information Systems. H. Kremers, and W. Pillmann, Eds. Umwelt-Informatik aktuell, Band 7. Marburg: Metropolis-Verlag; [24] Preiss P., Klotz V., Description of updated and extended draft tools for the detailed site-dependent assessment of external costs. Technical Paper, 7.4 RS 1b, University of Stuttgart, Germany, [25] Czarnowska L., Frangopoulos C.A., Dispersion of Pollutants, Environmental Externalities due to a Pulverized Coal Power Plant and their Effect on the Cost of Electricity. ECOS Switzerland 2010 [26] Czarnowska L., Frangopoulos C.A., Environmental externalities due to a pulverized coal power plant in Europe and their effect on the cost of electricity. in Optimization using Exergy-based Methods and Computational Fluid Dynamics, (G. Tsatsaronis, and A. Boyano, editors), Clausthal-Zellerfeld: Papierflieger Verlag, 2009, pp [27] Central Statistical Office [28] Szargut J., Exergy Analysis: Technical and Ecological Applications. WIT-press, 2005 Southampton, 2005 [29] European Statistic Database Eurostat Acknowledgments The paper has been prepared within the RECENT project (REsearch Center for Energy and New Technologies) supported by 7th Framework Programme, Theme 4, Capacities. 58