Most studies of reliable electricity supplies have been artful efforts to quantify the benefits of additional electric generating capacity (Webb; Andersson and Taylor). Outages are treated as the result of insufficient capacity, and outage costs are weighed against whatever outlays are neces-sary...

A general model for valuation of changes in natural resource service flows, entirely consistent with Hicksian concepts of consumer surplus, is developed. It is a total value model, applicable to all classes of goods: divisible and indivisible in ...