Sustainability in the power plant choice

International literature presents several studies on the economics of power plants based on cash flows. However there are sustainability factors (e.g., environmental and social aspects, etc.) able to heavily bear on the sustainability of certain investments. This paper lists and quantifies these factors and ranks under different scenarios the following technologies: hydro, coal, oil, gas and nuclear. Then an overall multi-attribute model, based on the quality function deployment approach, delivers a weight for each factor, dividing its impact in the three different sustainability dimensions: economic, environmental and social. Finally the factor weights and their performances are coupled to obtain an overall ranking. The results show that hydroelectric plants are usually the best solution. Coal and nuclear could be a good choice even if each type of plant has its strengths and weaknesses. On the contrary, the oil and gas-fired plants are always the worst choice.