Why "Cheap" Coal is Way Too Expensive

From Firedoglake:

“What if we factored the environmental and health impacts of burning coal into its cost?” Results would be $500 billion/year, or 17.8 cents/kilowatt hour. Included is a tender collection of photos and descriptions of what is happening to ordinary people directly affected by coal.

 The truth is that if the true cost to the nation in avoidable illness and death, pollution, devastated communities and ruined food sources of using fossil fuels of all kinds were actually expressed in the market price of fossil fuels and petroleum products like plastic, we'd never extract or import another drop of oil, ounce of coal or cubic inch of natural gas.

Because it would be too fucking expensive.

If our electricity and gas bills included the real cost of coal, oil and gas, there would be riots in the streets demanding solar, wind and geothermal energy. Right now.

We're paying the real cost of fossil fuels not in the price at the pump or the electric meter, but in the taxpayer dollars spent to clean up the pollution and treat the illnesses we don't make Big Oil and Big Coal pay for.

Renewable energy is cheaper than fossil fuels by an order of magnitude. Demand it now.