3 ms·

This may be true but the health costs are shifted to the consumer, government and health providers. If health damages were factored into the costs of producing

This may be true but the health costs are shifted to the consumer, government and health providers. If health damages were factored into the costs of producing energy or as overhead that the fossil fuel industry had to eat, they would have much more incentive to be cleaner and to invest in renewables.

ZeroGravitas 9y ago
That $10 billion per year is purely in the costs the energy industry is going to pass onto their customers. Once you start counting the health or climate benefits the number goes up. http://www.carbontracker.org/in-the-media/phasing-out-coal-power-plants-could-save-us-consumers-10-billion-a-year/ http://www.carbontracker.org/in-the-media/phasing-out-coal-p... The issue is that they're mostly escaping market forces due to how they are regulated: "“Merchant” coal owners operating in competitive wholesale markets have lost nearly half their value in the last two years amid fierce competition from cheap gas and renewables. However, two thirds of coal plants are “regulated” and receive government-approved prices which cover their costs. This means that consumers rather than shareholders pick up the bill for supporting uneconomic coal plants." Once you start counting actual externalities you get numbers like $5 Trillion a year subsides for fossil fuels globally, as estimated by the IMF, 7% of global GDP: http://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2015/09/28/04/53/sonew070215a http://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2015/09/28/04/53/sonew07...