Cost: Fossil Fuels
Cost is an important and complex consideration. Beyond fuel prices alone, you also must account for the cost of building (or renovating), operating, and maintaining system infrastructure. This includes power plant boiler equipment and transmission cables.
All conventional fossil-fuel-based power plants use a boiler to generate steam, which turns a turbine and creates electricity. The type of fuel that feeds the boiler is typically determined by factors that include actual and projected fuel prices, how efficiently the fuel burns, and maintenance costs. Currently, coal and natural gas each supply about one-third of the nation's electricity.
Many factors may influence the price of natural resources, including (but not limited to) global supply and demand, and world affairs. Because natural gas is so plentiful now, its supplies are cheaper to buy than other sources that have a more limited availability. For a power plant designed to run on fossil fuels, fluctuating prices can be good news. Boiler conversion can be done at a fraction of the cost of building a new power plant from scratch, so a plant operator may decide to convert its boiler to use whichever energy source is cheapest at the time.
The Hidden Costs
In addition to the actual costs of fossil fuels, there are certain “hidden” costs to consider. Now, watch another video about the impact on climate of burning fossil fuels and read about some of the other costs related to their use.
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| Keyboard Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
| Space | Pause/Play video playback |
| Enter | Pause/Play video playback |
| m | Mute/Unmute video volume |
| Up and Down arrows | Increase and decrease volume by 10% |
| Right and Left arrows | Seek forward or backward by 5 seconds |
| 0-9 | Fast seek to x% of the video. |
| f | Enter or exit fullscreen. (Note: To exit fullscreen in flash press the Esc key. |
| c | Press c to toggle captions on or off |
Watch this video, in which Tom Quartuccio, the director of New York City's largest power plant, the Ravensworth Generating Station, explains why the “Big Allis” boiler now burns natural gas to meet the city’s demands. Listen to how he relates the choice of fuel to maintenance costs.
Fossil fuels exact a physical toll on the environment that’s not accounted for in their prices. On land, activities related to mining, drilling, and distribution (via trains, trucks, pipelines) disturb vegetation, destroy natural landscapes, and pollute air and water resources. In the ocean, offshore and deep-water operations threaten marine habitats. Even though modern engineering techniques are designed to reduce the impact of these activities, when accidents occur, short-term cleanup costs and long-term environmental and health consequences can be significant. Some people criticize the visual appearance of some wind and solar installations—and their construction may adversely affect plant and animal communities—but the environmental impact of these systems once installed is relatively minimal.
