Posts Tagged by true costs
The True Cost of Fossil Fuels
| November 29, 2009 | Posted by Craig Shields under Fossil Fuels |
Here is a new post on a subject that I think lies at the very crux of the discussion on renewable energy: identifying the true costs of fossil fuels. Yes, the migration to renewable energy is expensive, but it’s the bargain of the century when one honestly and carefully adds up all the costs — obvious and hidden — associated with coal and oil — not to mention nuclear. As long as we as a civilization live under the delusion that “gas prices are low,” we’re destined to follow irrelevant discussions on the subject of its alternatives.
The most obvious candidates for inclusion in this list of costs are healthcare, global climate change, and ocean acidification. While no one suggests that quantifying the cost of the damage in any of these categories is easy, I call readers’ attention to this recent article in the New York Times that opens a discussion on the subject, quoting a report from the National Academy of Sciences. The article concentrates on the healthcare issues, and points to a cost of about $120 billion a year in US alone (less than 5% of the world’s population), due largely to the thousands of premature deaths caused by air pollution.
Of course, these figures don’t put a price on the enormity of the human misery associated with these premature deaths — most of which are cancer. It’s ironic that we’re talking about the cost of treating people who are slowly succumbing to agonizing deaths, while not even mentioning the suffering of the patients — and that of their loved ones.
To be fair, these costs are even harder to quantify. In a way, one could argue that these are all cases of “wrongful death,” insofar as we actually have the technology at hand to make the move to renewables, but we find it politically infeasible to stop mining coal and pumping oil. It certain makes one wonder if the energy industry will be facing the same type of class-action lawsuits (not to mention public loathing) that has greeted the tobacco industry over the last half century.
In any case, articles like this New York Times piece indicate that we’re starting to ask ourselves the right questions. And as always, that’s a prerequisite to finding the right answers.
Related posts:
Renewables Vs. Coal – Can't We All Just Get Along?
| October 4, 2009 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Politics |
Frequent contributor Sonny Carri wrote a long and eloquent comment about the coal industry, which I summarize here:
Let’s work to get them on board, not be an adversary. Change requires coming together, not schism.
Very thoughtful stuff as always, Sonny. In response, let me say that I honestly don’t see change without push-back; I see entrenched interests that are braced for the fight of a lifetime, and I doubt there is any sincere interest in “coming together” whatsoever. It’s funny you mention this, as we’ve had numerous internal discussions about not positioning the HyPEG as a replacement for coal, so as not to create any more enmity than possible. After going ’round and ’round on the subject, I just don’t see this. It’s not that I’m a combative person by nature; I’m not. It’s just this: The coal industry may be evil (or whatever you would call “profits first, people a distant second”), but they’re most definitely not idiots. In fact, big energy has hired some of the brightest minds on the planet — and guess whom they’re gunning for?
As I may have told you, I moderated a panel at the AltCarExpo out here in CA, and I stayed on the floor both days, talking ultimately with hundreds of people. Most telling to me were conversations I had with expatriated Europeans about electric vehicles, several of whom told me, “Sorry, not for me. As long as your power here in the US is so heavily rooted in coal — and even worse, nuclear — EVs really aren’t green at all.” Now that’s not completely correct, but it sure does show the difference between the Europeans — who are working hard to clean up the energy business — and us in the US, who, while we may we working hard, have yet to make much progress.
Let’s just call a spade a spade, and get everyone to pay the true cost of his power source. I don’t want subsidies for hydrokinetics; I just want coal to pay the true cost of ripping up our planet and poisoning our people. Once that’s in place, I’m happy to just let the chips fall where they may.
