AltEnToday

As I’m reading through Thomas Friedman’s Hot, Flat, and Crowded, I’m caught by the fact that he’s uttering the same arguments that I’ve heard from many that support the next green energy revolution - it’s time we recognize that pollution and the “common space” is not just a freebie that doesn’t have to be accounted for. If we could catch traditional - coal, oil, and gas - sources of energy polluting and causing “externalized” harms (that they do not presently pay for), suddenly technologies like solar, wind, geothermal, and *gasp* even nuclear become quite attractive. 

A recent news event has gone by the news cycle bizarrely nearly completely ignored - a massive spillage of toxic coal ash mixed with water that has created an environmental disaster right in peoples’ back yards. The culprit? Tennessee Valley Authority: Roosevelt’s TVA; part of the new deal. As we watch the new government come in to power, they’re also promising TVA & New Deal-like activities… But perhaps that’s best left for another discussion. No, where I’d rather steer this particular monologue is in the fact that these spills and environmental disasters are a reality when facing these (as Friedman calls them) Dirty Fuels. 

When considering the future, wouldn’t it be great to imagine when toxic spills become a thing of the past? The only way that we can really start developing that future is to start thinking about ways to internalize these external costs that traditional energy sources are involved in… From the pollution of CO2 to the likelihood of a toxic and devastating spill like the one in Tennessee, these are all external costs that often do not get passed to the producer. They AREN’T part of the cost of doing business, and therefore aren’t calculated in the price of energy when the competition comes to bear. 

In order to really invest in the next stage of clean electrons (again, as Friedman calls them) we should seriously consider developing market mechanisms that account for all those external, publicly-rendered costs, and force companies to internalize them. This is not for the sake of putting them directly out of business, but simply to recognize that there are economic burdens that society is bearing; but we should bear them no longer.