3 ms·
Without cheap energy in the form of coal, how many would die each year?
by back_beyond 10y ago
Without cheap energy in the form of coal, how many would die each year?
- mikeash 10y agoDo you mean compared to an alternative where people's energy comes from burning wood and dung, or one where energy comes from widespread solar, wind, and storage?
- back_beyond 10y agoI mean the alternative that would exist today, absent coal.
- mikeash 10y agoAs in, if coal had never been used for energy in human history? How is that relevant?
- back_beyond 10y agoYou misunderstand.
- mikeash 10y agoYou could, I dunno... explain? I guess you mean a world just like today, but coal power instantly evaporated? There would be mass chaos and death, but again I don't see the relevance.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- maratd 10y agoYou're being purposefully daft. A tax on coal would increase the price of coal. An increase in the price of coal would result in more DEATH. Not in the US, obviously, but in some 3rd world country where the price of energy used for heating delineates life and death. So he's asking, quite simply, how many people your good intentions will kill?
- mikeash 10y agoNo, I don't understand what the guy is asking, for serious. If he wanted to talk about the consequences of a tax on coal, then he wouldn't have stated his hypothetical as "absent coal."
- maratd 10y agoIf you tax coal and make it expensive, people won't use it. They'll use X, whatever that is. Hence his comment "absent coal". Now that they're using X, which is more expensive than untaxed coal, some people won't be able to afford heating their hut/yurt/cave/whatever and will die.
- mikeash 10y agoCoal wouldn't disappear overnight even if a tax made it uncompetitive with other sources of electricity. There's a ton of infrastructure that would keep it going for quite a while. That's why I can't reconcile "today, absent coal" with this idea. Anyway, to your point, I think there must be better ways to help poor people afford energy than to subsidize the electricity of wealthy people and industries. Set aside a small portion of the tax revenues for helping poor people pay for electricity. The important thing with taxing an externality is to capture the cost, what you do with the money matters much less.