Using Decision Analysis and Risk Analysis to Manage Utility Environmental Risk

Decision analysis and risk analysis techniques are used to analyze and evaluate a wide variety of problems. Recently, the electric utility industry has used these techniques for health, environmental, and economic risks associated with current and past operations. In some instances, the true health and environmental hazards posed by certain chemicals (for example, PCBs and dioxin) may be controversial and widely debated by the scientific and regulatory community. Regardless of the outcomes of such debates, the continued use or presence of these chemicals may pose a very real economic risk to the utility in the form of cleanup costs, fines, liabilities, public relations, or other direct or indirect costs. Decision analysis and risk analysis techniques are used to manage these economic risks. In other contexts, the utility may need an accurate quantitative assessment of health and environmental risks and an evaluation of alternative mitigation strategies. Some of the same techniques are applied to the environmental risk analysis problem.