Putting lipstick on the coal pig
When people argue that the use of coal and other fossil fuels is still cheaper than renewable energy they usually (and conveniently) fail to mention the external costs of fossil fuels that aren’t factored into the price of burning of these dirty fuels.
On the Wall Street Journal’s Environment Capital blog today there’s a great post explaining how:
“… fossil fuels remain cheaper because not all their costs are tallied—and that means pollution. Traditional power plants spew particulates into the air as well as carbon dioxide, but historically the cost of that pollution was not included in the pricetag for, say, operating a coal-fired plant.”
Read the entire WSJ post here: AC/DC: What’s the True Cost of Electricity?
Read more: Putting lipstick on the coal pig
TAGS: clean coal, coal, coal costs, coal pollution, electricty costs, external costs of electricity, Page van der Linden, US
