Why do we burn so much coal for power generation? Supposedly because it’s cheap. However, the true price of coal is far, far more than what it’s bought and sold for per tonne. The real cost to the USA’s economy through the human health and environmental damage it wreaks has been calculated – and it is mind-boggling.
Greenpeace recently hosted a preview of a soon to be published study by Dr. Paul Epstein, Director of Harvard Medical School Center for Health and the Global Environment.
The study looks beyond the already very thorny issues such as subsidies and examines human health and environmental impacts of coal throughout its entire life cycle; based on peer-reviewed studies already published.
The result: the impact of coal in the USA costs a third to over half a trillion dollars annually. Not billion, trillion. Each year!
Breaking that down, based on the 500 billion dollar mark, that amounts to a debt of $1,515 per man, woman and child in the USA, every year in relation to the impacts fossil fuel has on the nation’s bottom line.
Read the complete story at Green Living Tips