Coal Costs U.S. $500 Billion Per Year: Study

On the heels of President Obama's speech supporting clean coal, it doesn't seem that this energy source is leaving anytime soon. But while advocates often tout the inexpensiveness of coal, a new study reveals that the substance may be costing the U.S. up to $500 billion per year. So much for cheap coal.

Harvard professor and Huffington Post contributor Paul Epstein, M.D., M.P.H., has just announced the release of a new study in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences entitled "Full Cost Accounting For the Life Cycle Of Coal."

According to TreeHugger, Epstein's study is considered one of the first to examine the costs of coal in its entirety - from extraction to combustion. So how did Epstein reach the astronomical number of $500 billion/yr?

First, public health costs. In Appalachian communities alone, health care, deaths, and injuries from coal mining and transporting cost $74 billion per year. Beyond Appalachia, the health costs of cancer, lung disease, and respiratory illnesses related to pollutant emissions totals $187.5 billion per year. According to Climate Progress, processing coal releases heavy metal toxins and carcinogens which in turn may lead to long-term health problems. The American Lung Association reports on a study finding that coal-powered electricity caused over 13,000 premature deaths in 2010.

Beyond health problems, add the cost of coal's effect on land use, energy consumption, and food prices, plus the cost of toxic waste spills and cleanup... $500 billion. "And this is an underestimate," reports Epstein. He concludes, "The public is unfairly paying for the impacts of coal use. Accounting for these 'hidden costs' doubles to triples the price of electricity from coal per kWh, making wind, solar, and other renewable very economically competitive."

According to Epstein, we must focus more on green city planning. Most importantly, "We need to phase out coal rapidly."

Comments

[Mattjoe3]

10:18 AM on 03/27/2011

So should the cost of nuclear be calculated same?

[KarlaElisa]

08:49 PM on 03/26/2011

AMY GOODMAN: Derrick, you’ve written, "Civilization is not and can never be sustainable."

DERRICK JENSEN: Yeah. Several years ago, I was riding around in a car with a friend of mine, George Draffan, with whom I’ve written a couple books. And I was just making conversation. I said, "So, George, if you could live at any level of technology that you want to, what would it be?" And he was not in a very good mood that day, and he said, "That’s a really stupid question, Derrick, because we can fantasize whatever we want, but the truth is there’s only one level of technology that’s sustainable. And that’s the Stone Age. And we’ll be there again some day. And the only question really is, what’s left of the world when we get there?"

[Kenz300]

07:22 PM on 03/06/2011

The price of coal and oil is going up. The price of wind and solar is dropping.

It is time to transition to safe, clean alternative energy. Wind, solar, wave energy,
geothermal and second generation ethanol from algae or cellulose is the future.

We all need clean air, clean water and safe food to eat. Let's develop energy sources
that are safe and clean and provide local jobs.

[Erik Van Erne]

11:17 AM on 03/21/2011

Yep you're right. That's the clean way to go

[ducatigp]

11:22 PM on 02/20/2011

Live in area not far from 3 coal power plants. One of them considered one of the dirtiest in the US. Another they only use the dirtiest coal and then they mix it other materials and chemicals. State of New York is suing the one plant because then pollution from the stack is reaching their state. Then you interview the local people on TV news and they say—we see no pollution—No problems—what they don’t get is sometimes you “don’t see” the pollution and chemicals, but they are there and are killing us and wild life.

[rpr]

01:32 PM on 03/08/2011

That's why the smokestacks are so tall: So that you don't notice the pollution nearby.

[scorpioman]

08:25 PM on 02/18/2011

they will never stop burning coal until every mountain is leveled

[rodjard]

09:45 AM on 02/18/2011

My brother, father and uncle are dead. they spent their useful
working lives in the coal industry.

They were able to collect very little benefits or retirement.

I believe they were better than average workers.

So if all workers would just work and die, Would that make this a cost effective industry?

[Dr Juan]

08:00 AM on 02/18/2011

This makes solar look totally cost effective. Germany is way way ahead of us on solar pwer.

[mamacat]

05:03 AM on 02/21/2011

Germany has about 5X as much installed solar power than the US.
Spain and Japan also have more installed solar power than the US.

[rpr]

01:34 PM on 03/08/2011

They have laws that prevent bribery ("campaign financing","PACs") and excessive lobbying. That makes them more flexible. In the US, the incumbents have the money and the ways to keep politicians in line.

[ken607]

07:25 AM on 02/18/2011

please GOD rapture the republicans NOW this planet cant take much more!

[smolensk-lies]

02:21 AM on 02/18/2011

want a REAL energy related cost study? here it is:

1) USA consumes 20 million barrels of oil a day
2) historical, fair, and common sense price of oil is $20 per barrell
3) bush's wars and conflict have permanently 'broken' the price of oil to an $80 per barrell average
4) 20 million bpd * $60 extra cost per bbl * 365 days in year =

438 billion dollars extra cost per year

f u bushco

study concluded

[rpr]

01:36 PM on 03/08/2011

Have you heard of supply vs demand and that any finite resource must run out at some time?

[sarrasine]

10:56 PM on 02/17/2011

add the costs of the wars to secure oil for the oil companies and the health and environmental impacts of oil and NG and you have way more than a trillion$ that the taxpayers and consumers have to pay out of pocket.its too bad none of these large energy companies pay any taxes, exxon made 40billion in profits and got a tax refund!

[Malcolm Hensley]

09:14 PM on 02/17/2011

I know calculating hidden cost from cheap dirty fossil fuels can be difficult. But calculating hidden cost and hidden benefits is not a one way street! They are, unfortunately, most likely as many hidden benefits from cheap dirty fossil fuels as cost.

I have a friend working in China because he could not get a job here in the U.S. He was bragging about his cheap electricity bill, and wheezing the whole time. Then he bragged about all the new construction, the new efficient buildings they were building, the new roads, the new trains, etc. Then he complained about the air and his water!

From an EIA report China consumed over 45% of all the coal burnt on the planet in 2009! You know your gut tells you that percentage went up in 2010!

This energy/environment balance is much more difficult in a Free Trade World than it was in the 80's & 90's!

Just a thought.

Talking about hidden cost. How many young Black or Hispanic men would be working in a factory instead of in prison if they were more factory jobs created by cheap dirty coal energy?

How much does it cost the state/federal government to incarcerate someone for a year? How much shorter is the life expectancy of a young gang banger? How much shorter are the life expectancy of the homeless because there are so few factory jobs. We all don't have the patience to sit in class and get a college education!

[Genders]

10:19 PM on 02/17/2011

What if we allowed killing homeless people for food and fule, think of all the billions that would earn. Get a heart.

[Malcolm Hensley]

01:11 AM on 02/18/2011

aka Soylent Green!

Genders, difficulties in reading my post?

Look I use one of my two vacation weeks a year to work with my family every year at Guide United Methodist Church to feed the Marginally House (homeless is not a term we like to use any more).

Many are there because of alcohol and/or drugs but many are there because they got laid off from there factory job! Many of our Marginally Housed use to have a home and worked in factories. They lost those jobs to Asia because of cheap dirty coal energy!

Remember your high school world history class and the Industrial Revolution? The planet has always had cheap labor but the Industrial Revolution had to wait for the invention of the steam engine!

Asia by itself increased coal usage worldwide by over 50% between 2000-2007. North America & Europe usage of coal actually went down a little! EIA report.

Lowering their energy cost Asia has taken in the neighborhood of 25-30% of our manufacturing jobs.

I would sit and talk to many of the Marginally House while they would tell me about themselves! Frankly it scared me to think what a few missing paychecks would do to my lifestyle. It prompted me to ask the right questions about cheap energy.

That's why I wrote, "This energy/env­ironment balance is much more difficult in a Free Trade World than it was in the 80's & 90's! "

[hk usp 45]

08:31 PM on 02/17/2011

TreeHugger vouches for the study. LOL

[Genders]

10:19 PM on 02/17/2011

Right, let's trust BP....

[abbienormal]

12:33 AM on 02/18/2011

The research is going to be published in a peer reviewed science journal. TreeHugger just brought the paper to light.

You did read the short article, didn't you?

[nevernot]

03:58 PM on 02/21/2011

Don't get me wrong, I do not doubt the numbers presented in the article one bit, but couldn't they bounce it off someone without a name so ripe for ridicule by the right first? What if treehugger changed their handle temporarily to BPisGreat, or IheartExxon, or DrillBabyDrill.....

[ckevere]

08:22 PM on 02/17/2011

SOLAR. FUND IT. It will pay for itself in time, and if its energy source runs out we have a lot more to worry about than powering our electronics.

[Genders]

10:22 PM on 02/17/2011

FF. Rooftop PV solar: free land, panels in house quantities now around 1$ per W. Rooftop pv solar in now the cheapest electricity million of American can get, and billions of people world wide. But the Solar lobby has only 1% of the money of fossils and nukes, so Chu loves Fossil and nukes. Figure it out.

[mamacat]

07:37 PM on 02/17/2011

We can't afford to immediately shut down our existing coal fired plants, but we should continue to convert them to cleaner burning methods, and whenever possible, we should continue to develop power sources that are less harmful to our environment.

I was reading an article in Scientific American magazine recently which stated that while China has surpassed the US as an installer of alternative energy systems, it continues to burn more coal than Europe, the US, and Japan, combined.

[8020vision]

07:42 PM on 02/17/2011

China has recently been building a coal burning power plant every week or two. They basically need so much energy to grow that they are building just about every kind of energy production method known - hydo, nuke, coal, gas, wind, solar...

But they know they are digging their environmental grave. They also know that in the short term, they need to feed the growth monkey on their back.

For more on China, population, super consumption, and energy, see:

http://8020vision.com/2010/06/21/the-real-population-problem/

Jay Kimball
8020 Vision

[esquilax]

02:11 AM on 02/18/2011

"China has recently been building a coal burning power plant every week or two."

This is a myth. At most they are building a new (supercritical) plant every month, BUT, importantly, the next oldest plant must be shut down. The count of coal plants is actually reducing.

(Still bad).

[esquilax]

02:23 AM on 02/18/2011

We could very quickly deploy energy efficiency measures and add roof-top solar PV to many many many homes. This would enable the decommissioning of coal plant while keeping the gas/nuclear infrastructure going for the moment.

[mamacat]

07:40 AM on 02/20/2011

I personally love the idea of solar rooftop, as I have a large south-facing area on an inclined roof. However, the initial cost is holding me back. Some places, like 'Frisco, are helping homeowners to meet the high initial cost. In the long run it is already efficient, but I am leery about borrowing money to pay for it.

[Longtimeliberal]

06:36 PM on 02/17/2011

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