I couldn't believe this, so I checked around a bit. According to [1], the cost for offsets are $5.50 to $29 per ton of CO2. According to [2], 1 kWh produces 2.

I couldn't believe this, so I checked around a bit. According to [1], the cost for offsets are $5.50 to $29 per ton of CO2. According to [2], 1 kWh produces 2.08-2.18 lbs kg of CO2 when burning coal (0.94-0.99 kg). Thus, the cost for the offset is about 0.52-2.9 US cents/kWh, or when using different power sources[3], 0.32-1.7 US cents/kWh, hence your number is about right. Now I guess the next thing to check is how solid those offset efforts really are. Also, probably they are cheap because they are the low-hanging fruits, I suspect that if everyone would offset their usage, the offset costs per kWh would become much higher. Thus, your assertion that the world would look almost identical if everyone would pay the true cost may well still be wrong. [1] http://gogreen.whatitcosts.com/carbon-offsets.htm http://gogreen.whatitcosts.com/carbon-offsets.htm [2] http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=74&t=11 http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=74&t=11 [3] http://carbonfund.org/how-we-calculate http://carbonfund.org/how-we-calculate "On average, electricity sources emit 1.222lbs CO2 per kWh (0.0005925 metric tons CO2 per kWh)"