Wednesday, October 21, 2009
(photo: Full Moon Masks)
Coal provides nearly half of the United States’ electricity — and nearly all of that industry’s “hidden costs,” according to a new study released by the National Academy of Sciences. As valuable as coal is to the nation’s energy supply, it also produces $120 billion a year in hidden costs, including more than $62 billion in “external damages,” otherwise known as “premature deaths from air pollution.”
In Hidden Costs of Energy: Unpriced Consequences of Energy Production and Use, the National Research Council concluded that the effects on human health are not evenly distributed among all coal-burning power plants. About 10% of the more than 400 plants produce a quarter of the country’s electricity—while also accounting for 43% of all “external damages.”
-Noel Brinkerhoff
National Academy Blockbuster: Coal’s Huge Hidden Costs (by Ken Ward Jr., The Charleston Gazette)
Hidden Costs of Energy: Unpriced Consequences of Energy Production and Use (National Academy of Sciences)
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