re: Coal is dead...

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I can see that point of view. But when customers think about their utility company for a whole 17 seconds per month (receive and pay bill), they mostly don't care about future costs and impacts. They care about today and what they pay right now.

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I agree 100%. Thats why externalities are typically dealt with by trying to bring the long-term costs into the present price. That way consumers, or the middle agents that purchase products on behalf of the consumer, like in the energy sector, are faced with a price that attempts to accurately reflect not just the production and present selling cost of the product, but the long-term externality costs that it will produce down the road.

And since we don't just do the simple thing most economists advocate, we end up with a messy, more costly bureaucratic system that tries to achieve the same end goal(or prevent it in some cases) through layers of unnecessary complexity. In this case, we don't account for the externalities so then competing interests attempt to enact regulations and subsidies, then they get countered by counter subsidies/regulations/selective repeals. Which then creates a back and forth of trying to undue one or the other depending on the political party or corporate interests in power.

There is in fact a solution where both liberals and conservatives could get a lot of what they want. You could drastically cut a lot of the EPA, saving tons of tax dollars, while actually raising revenues, creating a more equitable system for consumers and producers in the process, and probably make most environmentalists more happy then under the current system.

But Trump told the people of WV and Western PA he's bring the coal jobs back...

Can you tell us what percent of U.S. energy usage is renewable currently and how that translates to it being the "present"

Thanks

Coal is not dead. It is probably the "dirtiest" energy source we have, though.

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Renewables isn't coal's problem, it's cheap, abundant, cleaner natural gas.

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True. But even though the fuel burns cleaner, the extraction method (fracking) is potentially a pending ecological disaster.

If natural gas stays above $3, coal can be profitable. If natural gas is less than 3, coal is a loser in the US.

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No it isn't.

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Yes, it is. It is possible for something to be both good and bad for society at the same time. Having cheap, clean-burning energy? Good. Being able to light your sink water on fire? Bad.

"[THERE'S] NEVER BEEN ONE CASE—DOCUMENTED CASE—OF GROUNDWATER CONTAMINATION IN THE HISTORY OF THE THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS OF HYDRAULIC FRACTURING [WELLS]"

SEN. JAMES INHOFE, R-OKLA., APRIL 2011

The senator is incorrect.

LINK

gas in well water has been around forever.

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Solar is fricking dead as... dead.

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I know it is anecdotal, but I am seeing solar panels now more than ever on peoples' homes.

Solar is not dead.