Evaluating climate mitigation cost of power generation in Colombia: A novel approach to cost-benefit analysis when contemplating adoption of renewable energy technologies (REs)

Renewable energy technologies (REs) are crucial to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and mitigating climate change. REs can impact the environment negatively, particularly if they occupy large land areas. It is necessary to compare the potential benefits of using land to install REs with the possible loss of carbon sequestration in ecosystems where REs are installed. This effect can be particularly high in tropical countries. Such potential loss of carbon sequestration is generally ignored when evaluating the environmental impacts of proposed REs. This study examined the trade-offs between the loss of carbon fixation from land use in operating and projected hydro, wind, and solar power plants and GHG emissions from thermal power. We used MODIS products and official data from national agencies to estimate non-fixed carbon in areas occupied by REs and national data on GHG emissions from thermal power generation. We conclude that wind plants have the highest land occupation impact, while solar plants have the lowest. Hydropower plants have the highest non-assimilated carbon impact (loss of carbon fixation), but these values are significantly lower than GHG emissions from thermal power. Our results indicate that, although there are negative impacts from devoting large areas to power generation from REs, the amount of carbon injected into the atmosphere while generating the same amount of power from non-renewable sources is significantly greater. We recommend that cost-benefit analyses for adopting REs incorporate new approaches to quantify, more accurately, the true value of adopting these new energy-production strategies at the national scale.