When Coal Dust Gets In Your Eyes...
by joe-kgmi
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posted Apr 16 2012 12:57PM
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...you don't see, or think, straight. We're often told that coal is "cheap energy" and we should expand our use of it. Nothing could be further from the truth. As this Yale University study shows, the coal industry creates costs that far out pace the actual economic benefits it generates (and it didn't even take climate change into account). Those costs come in the form of damage to citizens' health and the environment and neither the coal industry or we as utility customers pay them. But we as individuals certainly do pay them through higher medical costs, environmental degradation, etc. And, when these costs are taken into consideration, coal-generated energy is immensely more costly than green energy.
Keep this fact in mind the next time you hear someone rip on cap-and-trade because of the increased cost. We're already paying big time for not going green.
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