Peter Burgherr

Renewable Energy in the Context of Sustainable Development

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A Comparative Analysis of Accident Risks in Fossil, Hydro, and Nuclear Energy Chains

ABSTRACT This study presents a comparative assessment of severe accident risks in the energy sector, based on the historical experience of fossil (coal, oil, natural gas, and LPG [Liquefied Petroleum Gas]) and hydro chains contained in the comprehensive Energy-related Severe Accident Database (ENSAD), as well as Probabilistic Safety Assessment (PSA) for the nuclear chain. Full energy chains were considered because accidents can take place at every stage of the chain. Comparative analyses for the years 1969–2000 included a total of 1870 severe (≥ 5 fatalities) accidents, amounting to 81,258 fatalities. Although 79.1% of all accidents and 88.9% of associated fatalities occurred in less developed, non-OECD countries, industrialized OECD countries dominated insured losses (78.0%), reflecting their substantially higher insurance density and stricter safety regulations. Aggregated indicators and frequency-consequence (F-N) curves showed that energy-related accident risks in non-OECD countries are distinctly higher than in OECD countries. Hydropower in non-OECD countries and upstream stages within fossil energy chains are most accident-prone. Expected fatality rates are lowest for Western hydropower and nuclear power plants; however, the maximum credible consequences can be very large. Total economic damages due to severe accidents are substantial, but small when compared with natural disasters. Similarly, external costs associated with severe accidents are generally much smaller than monetized damages caused by air pollution.

Comparative assessment of severe accident risks in the coal, oil and natural gas chains

This study compared severe accident risks of fossil energy chains (coal, oil and natural gas), based on the historical experience contained in the comprehensive database ENSAD. Considered risk indicators focused on human health impacts, i.e., fatality rates and maximum consequences were calculated for a broad range of country groups. Generally, expected fatality rates were lowest for natural gas, intermediate for oil and highest for coal. Concerning maximum consequences of a single accident, natural gas also performed best, followed by coal, whereas accidents in the oil chain can claim significantly more fatalities. In general, OECD and EU 27 ranked top, while non-OECD countries and China in the case of coal were worst. The consideration of numerous additional country groups enabled a more detailed differentiation within the main bounding groups. Furthermore, differences among country groups are distinctly decreasing from coal to oil and natural gas, both for fatality rates and maximum consequences. The use of import adjusted-fatality rates indicates that fatality risks in supply countries are an essential aspect to understand how specific risk reduction strategies may affect other components of energy security, and thus tradeoffs and compromises are necessary. Finally, the proposed fatality risk score for fossil chains (FRSF) allows a comparison of the combined accident risk for the considered fossil energy chains across individual countries, which can be visualized using risk mapping.

Bayesian Data Analysis of Severe Fatal Accident Risk in the Oil Chain

We analyze the risk of severe fatal accidents causing five or more fatalities and for nine different activities covering the entire oil chain. Included are exploration and extraction, transport by different modes, refining and final end use in power plants, heating or gas stations. The risks are quantified separately for OECD and non-OECD countries and trends are calculated. Risk is analyzed by employing a Bayesian hierarchical model yielding analytical functions for both frequency (Poisson) and severity distributions (Generalized Pareto) as well as frequency trends. This approach addresses a key problem in risk estimation-namely the scarcity of data resulting in high uncertainties in particular for the risk of extreme events, where the risk is extrapolated beyond the historically most severe accidents. Bayesian data analysis allows the pooling of information from different data sets covering, for example, the different stages of the energy chains or different modes of transportation. In addition, it also inherently delivers a measure of uncertainty. This approach provides a framework, which comprehensively covers risk throughout the oil chain, allowing the allocation of risk in sustainability assessments. It also permits the progressive addition of new data to refine the risk estimates. Frequency, severity, and trends show substantial differences between the activities, emphasizing the need for detailed risk analysis.

Assessment of severe accident risks in the Chinese coal chain

Severe accident risks in Chinas coal chain were investigated in detail based on extensive statistics using Chinese sources that were not open until recently. Every year about 6000 fatalities occur in Chinese coal mines; about one third due to severe (≥ five fatalities) accidents. The Chinese severe accident fatality rate for the coal chain is 6.17 per GWeyr, which is about 10 times higher than in other non-OECD countries and about 40 times higher than in OECD countries. At the province level lower fatality rates were associated with higher mechanised levels of coal mining. Severe accidents are about five times more frequent in small mines than large mines because many small mines lack even basic safety standards, whereas large mines invest up to 15?20% of total costs in safety. This study contributed to the evaluation of energy policy strategies for China, based on an inter-disciplinary assessment including comprehensive risk analysis.

Assessment of Severe Accident Risks

This chapter deals with the Risk Assessment Task within CETP. This task addressed the comparative assessment of accidents risks associated with the various electricity supply options. The full account of the work carried out within this task is provided in the technical report (Hirschberg et al., 2003a).

An aftermath analysis of the 2014 coal mine accident in Soma, Turkey: use of risk performance indicators based on historical experience

On the 13th of May 2014 a fire related incident in the Soma coal mine in Turkey caused 301 fatalities and more than 80 injuries. This has been the largest coal mine accident in Turkey, and in the OECD country group, so far. This study investigated if such a disastrous event should be expected, in a statistical sense, based on historical observations. For this purpose, PSIs ENSAD database is used to extract accident data for the period 1970-2014. Four different cases are analyzed, i.e., OECD, OECD w/o Turkey, Turkey and USA. Analysis of temporal trends for annual numbers of accidents and fatalities indicated a non-significant decreasing tendency for OECD and OECD w/o Turkey and a significant one for USA, whereas for Turkey both measures showed an increase over time. The expectation analysis revealed clearly that an event with the consequences of the Soma accident is rather unlikely for OECD, OECD w/o Turkey and USA. In contrast, such a severe accident has a substantially higher expectation for Turkey, i.e. it cannot be considered an extremely rare event, based on historical experience. This indicates a need for improved safety measures and stricter regulations in the Turkish coal mining sector in order to get closer to the rest of OECD.

Health effects of technologies for power generation: Contributions from normal operation, severe accidents and terrorist threat

As a part of comprehensive analysis of current and future energy systems we carried out numerous analyses of health effects of a wide spectrum of electricity supply technologies including advanced ones, operating in various countries under different conditions. The scope of the analysis covers full energy chains, i.e. fossil, nuclear and renewable power plants and the various stages of fuel cycles. State-of-the-art methods are used for the estimation of health effects. This paper addresses health effects in terms of reduced life expectancy in the context of normal operation as well as fatalities resulting from severe accidents and potential terrorist attacks. Based on the numerical results and identified patterns a comparative perspective on health effects associated with various electricity generation technologies and fuel cycles is provided. In particular the estimates of health risks from normal operation can be compared with those resulting from severe accidents and hypothetical terrorist attacks. A novel approach to the analysis of terrorist threat against energy infrastructure was developed, implemented and applied to selected energy facilities in various locations. Finally, major limitations of the current approach are identified and recommendations for further work are given.

Comparative Assessment of Accident Risks in the Energy Sector

This chapter is structured in five parts. The introduction discusses the relevance of accidents in the energy sector and puts them into the broader perspective of sustainability, energy security, and critical infrastructure protection. Furthermore, an overview of various risk assessment concepts is given. The second part provides a detailed overview of the comprehensive framework for comparative risk assessment developed by the Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI), at the core of which is the energy-related severe accident database (ENSAD). Third, a broad range of risk indicators and other measures are described and calculated allow for an objective, fair, and quantitative comparison of accident risks across a broad range of fossil, nuclear, and renewable technologies. This evaluation is complemented by a compilation of additional risk factors that can play a key role in decision processes and stakeholder interaction. However, for the time being they are often not amenable to full quantification because they cannot be described and analyzed by traditional risk metrics mainly focusing on consequences or because only limited historical experience is available. The chapter ends with a summary of the main findings and conclusions that can be drawn from comparative risk assessment as well as their potential implications for policy making.

Accident Risks in the Energy Sector: Comparison of Damage Indicators and External Costs

In 1998 ENSAD, a highly comprehensive database on severe accidents with emphasis on the energy sector, was established by the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI). The historical experience represented in this database was supplemented by probabilistic analyses for the nuclear energy, to carry out a detailed comparison of severe accident risks in the energy sector [1]. The database allows to perform comprehensive analyses of accident risks, which are not limited to power plants but cover full energy chains, including exploration, extraction, processing, storage, transports and waste management.