Comment by pfdietz
7 hours ago
> maximum benefit
If we do that, we need to assign a value to a statistical human life. This is usually taken to be something like $12M (adjusted for age).
And having done that, we discover the contribution of lost lives to the cost of solar and wind (and nuclear, without accidents) is lost in the noise. So the problem ends up choosing the source that is directly cheaper; differences in deaths per TWh can be ignored.
I’m assuming you mean when choosing between solar/wind/nuclear? I don’t imagine all others are so benign.
Right, the deaths from (say) coal are much higher and would contribute significantly to cost.