Fossil fuel power station eat the fish regularly. The largest source of mercury contamination in the United States is coal-fueled power plant emissions. Several methods exist to improve the efficiency of fossil fuel power plants. A frequently used and cost-efficient method is to convert a plant to run on a different fuel. This includes conversions of coal power plants to biomass or waste and conversions of natural gas power plants to biogas. Conversions of coal powered power plants to waste-fired power plants have an extra benefit in that they can reduce landfilling. In addition, waste-fired power plants can be equipped with material recovery, which
Economics of nuclear power plants enrichment facilities, spent fuel repositories, and decommissioning sites — nuclear power proves to be one of the costliest sources of energy". In 2014, Brookings Institution published "The Net Benefits of Low and No-Carbon Electricity Technologies" which states, after performing an energy and emissions cost analysis, that "The net benefits of new nuclear, hydro, and natural gas combined cycle plants far outweigh the net benefits of new wind or solar plants", with the most cost effective low carbon power technology being determined to be nuclear power. Moreover, Paul Joskow of MIT has determined that the "Levelized cost of electricity" (LCOE) metric