This is a useful way to look at things - level the playing field. It's probably something coal and petroleum don't want to do, however, because alternates would displace them rapidly if the playing field were truly leveled.
How? Because currently external costs are not realized. For example, let's say you have a choice of 2 sources of electricity, one is cheap, the other expensive. The cheapest source also happens to cause an increase in respiratory illness in cities downwind, divert water supplies from other uses, increase mercury contamination of river and streams (making local ones unfishable), the list goes on. In contrast, the most expensive doesn't do these things, but likely has a minor, one time impact impact from mining the materials its made of. Currently, the more expensive option will never be built, because the health costs are considered "external". Long term, the health costs of the cheaper source will eventually make it the more expensive source, but that's medicaids problem, not the cost of the power company.
Secondly, if you want to level the playing field, you're going to need to start thinking about stuff like; subsidies for road freight hauling vs. rail (highways are heavily subsidized, rails are not), the use of military power (1 trillion could go a long way to creating energy independenc) to ensure stable supplies of one particular type of energy, and of course just plain tax breaks (like the manufacturing tax exception for oil companies) that currently exist. You'll also need to look at how cities favor just one form of transportation (cars), and make using other things dangerous or just impossible.
It's a complicated puzzle, but if you were to truly level the playing field, we'd be well on our way towards saying goodbye to petroleum and coal forever.
Quick stats: 24,000 people a year die prematurely because of pollution from coal-fired power plants. And every year 38,000 heart attacks, and an additional 550,000 asthma attacks result from power plant pollution. This per American Lung Association
"people living in the most polluted U.S. cities could lose between 1.8 and 3.1 years because of exposure to chronic air pollution."
"Published data from the American Cancer Society cohort suggested that long-term exposure to fine particulate air pollution at levels that occur in North America is associated with increased risk for cardiovascular mortality by 12 percent for every 10 micrometers of particulate matter within 1 cubic meter of air. Ischemic heart diseases (e.g., heart attacks) account for the largest portion of this increased mortality rate. Other causes, such as heart failure and fatal arrythmias, also increased"
More here if you're interested.
americanheart.org |
