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As we have learned in this lesson, environmental externalities and the costs that come with them are driving the adoption of renewables across sectors, mainly as longer term cost cutting measures. One of the more significant problems with trying to translate the costs of damages to the environment and human health is that these costs are not visible to market considerations. Making the costs of these environmental and health risks explicit is a significant strategy for equalizing the costs of non-renewable sources of energy. Further formalization of Life Cycle Environmental Cost Analysis of energy will facilitate the adoption of figuring in the payback of these costs over a projected duration. In the case of investing in photovoltaics, for example, the duration for the recovery of environmental costs is continually coming down, demonstrating that what may seem costly now may be profitable in a few years and that starting conditions matter.
Understanding that both impacts and costs need to be addressed across spatial and temporal scales (local, regional, global / short, medium, long-term) is of crucial importance in capturing an accurate analysis of life-cycle costs.
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