Environmental Externalities of Energy Options - Basics and Applications

Course coordinator — Mr. Yoshio Matsuki, Independent Consultant.

Language of the course — English.

The purpose of this lecture and the exercise is to introduce the ways of solving the environmental problems caused by energy systems, through market mechanisms. Students will be requested to participate in discussions of the issues, and to practice a few exercises using personal computer. After all the lectures and the exercise, an additional discussion session will be provided about the recovery of the affected regions of Chernobyl Accident. The lecture will be given in English.

Plan of the course:

1st hour. Lecture, Different Energy Systems and Impacts – Qualitative Discussions.


2nd hour. Lecture, Distinguishing Externalities and Internalization.


3rd hour. Lecture, Externality on Theory.

  1. Microeconomics theory – Price theory.
  2. Demand and Supply.
  3. Reasons for Demand Shift and Supply Shift.
  4. Governmental Interventions to the Market.
  5. Monetary valuation of the damages.
    1. Damage based techniques.
    2. Control cost techniques.
    3. Contingency valuations.
    4. Willingness to Pay, an example in Ukraine.

4th hour. Lecture, Air Pollution and Health Impacts.

  1. Emissions, Meteorology and Atmospheric Dispersion.
  2. Epidemiology and Dose-Effect Relation/coefficient.
  3. Health Impacts.
  4. Damage Costs.

5th hour. Exercise, Atmospheric Dispersion. Calculation — Exercise.


6th hour. Lecture, Global Warming Effects.

  1. Basic approaches for estimating the global climate change impacts.
  2. Potential impacts of global warming.
    1. Response in vegetation.
    2. Increases in crops and forest growth associated with enhanced atmospheric CO2 concentration.
    3. Response of agriculture.
    4. Response of managed forest and grasslands.
    5. Response of water resources.
    6. Response of marine and coastal environment.
    7. Response of natural landscapes and ecosystems.
    8. Response to human health.
  3. Economic valuation of impacts of global climate change.
  4. Illustrative estimates of damages.
  5. Summary of estimates from several studies.
  6. Uncertainty in estimates.

7th hour. Extra Discussion: Chernobyl recovery and sustainable development.