Harvard+Study+of+Externalities+of+Coal

Friends of the Appalachian Mountains,

A new Harvard University study published on Feb 17, 2011 has determined that the true costs of using coal to generate electricity in America are between $330 and $500 Billion dollars annually. These costs for so-called "cheap coal" include the ones that don't show up on your monthly electric bill: the so-called "externalities" or hidden costs. In a time of huge budget deficits, Americans - and our leaders in Washington - should be looking at these costs.

If you are a business owner, you try to externalize your costs. For example, Toyota requires its auto parts suppliers to warehouse their parts and deliver them to the assembly line on a "just-in-time" basis, so that Toyota doesn't have to build huge storage warehouses. Toyota's just-in-time system thus externalizes their costs for warehousing the parts onto their suppliers.

In the coal business, coal companies externalize their costs onto the general public (that's you and me, folks). For example:

When Appalachian streams become polluted with heavy metals because of mountaintop removal mining, the public pays to clean up the water so it's safe to drink - but they don't pay the cost on their electric bill, they pay it on their water bill!

When a child in North Carolina suffers an asthma attack or ear infection because of a coal-burning TVA power plant in Tennessee, the North Carolina family pays the cost of the child's medication - not TVA.

When a community in the Appalachian Mountains suffers from depreciated property values because a coal company is showering the town with coal dust, the homeowners pay the cost when they sell their homes and move away.

And when big, heavy coal trucks destroy the roads and bridges in the mountain towns, the taxpayers have to pay to fix the roads - not the trucking or coal companies. According to a Grist article by Joseph Romm about the Harvard study:

In terms of human health, the report estimates $74.6 billion a year in public health burdens in Appalachian communities, with a majority of the impact resulting from increased healthcare costs, injury and death. Emissions of air pollutants account for $187.5 billion, mercury impacts as high as $29.3 billion, and climate contributions from combustion between $61.7 and $205.8 billion.

A few years ago I read that the Indiana University School of Medicine did a similar study and determined that the public health cost of burning coal for Hoosiers was $5 billion annually - pollution from burning coal causes heart disease, lung disease, puts mercury into the environment and increases asthma. The American Lung Association estimates 13,000 excess deaths annually from coal-fired power plant pollution. A MACED study found that in 2006 coal generated $528 million in revenue for the state of Kentucky, but it cost $643 million in state expenditures. A Downstream Stategies report for West Virginia determined that coal's net costs to West Virginia for 2009 were $97 million.

This Harvard study is a national study and the numbers are just astronomical. But the United States is not taking the lead. About five years ago, in the Province of Ontario, when leaders calculated the public health care costs of burning coal and compared them to other forms of electricity generation, they found that burning coal was overwhelmingly more expensive than renewables and hydro-power. Because they have a public health care system in Canada, these leaders are now phasing out the use of coal.

Here in America, we just put the costs of coal on the backs of poor people without health insurance and little kids with asthma, while the coal company make huge profits.

The important lesson here is that we often hear that alternative sources of energy, such as wind power and solar power are "too expensive" and not cost-competitive with "cheap" sources of energy like coal. Now we know that is not true.

Below is a calendar of some great upcoming events and ways you can get involved. You don't have to be a scientist orprofessor or expert to help. Come to one of the spring break or summer camps and we will teach you everything and help you find ways to participate.

We need you! Please join us in the struggle to end mountaintop removal!

To learn more about any of the following events, go to http://www.mountainjustice.org/calendar/index.php and click on the event to get all the details. March 5-12 Alternative Spring Break in Virginia @ Natural Tunnel State Park, Duffield, Virginia, http://rrenewcollective.wordpress.com/ or contact Marley Green green.marley@gmail.com March 12-13 Appalachian Regional Reforestation Initiative (ARRI) volunteer tree planting on an old strip mine site at Yatesville Lake, Kentucky. Contact Mary Miller jomar9983@windstream.net to volunteer

March 13-20 Mountain Justice Spring Break in Northern Alabama, register: www.mjsb.org

April 2-6 Week in Washington to lobby against mt top removal info: http://www.theallianceforappalachia.org/ April 15-18 Powershift, Washington DC - join 10,000 young people at Powershift! http://www.powershift2011.org/? May 20-27 Mountain Justice Summer Camp in Kentucky www.mountainjustice.org

May 27-30 Heartwood's 21st Annual Forest Council, Camp Ahistadi, Damscus VA www.heartwood.org

June 5-11 Appalachia Rising! March on Blair Mountain www.appalachiarising.org

June 16-19 The Whippoorwill Festival - Skills for Earth-Friendly Living; near Berea KY http://homegrownhideaways.org/default.aspx Thanks and hope to see you in the mountains this summer! Dave Cooper

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