Renewable energy has minimal human cost unlike some fossil fuels
Posted by Kelly Smith on Mon, Apr 12, 2010
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, coal makes up about half of the power mix in the United States. Some say that coal is cheap, but there are many costs that are not included in this reckoning. Besides the obvious carbon emissions that contribute to climate change, one of the problems with fossil fuel usage is the difficulty of extraction. Oil needs to be drilled from deep below the earth's surface, and coal needs to be mined. Coal mining has a particularly high level of environmental cost and human risk. Strip mines change the topography of mountain ridges. They remove vegetation and cause run-off problems. Strip mines remove wildlife habitat. Underground mines pose high risks to humans working within, from explosions to floods to black lung.
Within the past few weeks, mining disasters have brought the dangers of coal back to the forefront of many people's minds. On March 28, the Wangjialing Coal Mine in China flooded. Over one hundred mine workers were trapped underground for several days before some of them were rescued on April 5. Also on April 5, an explosion in the Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia killed at least twenty-five miners. These tragedies are all too common for the families who depend on coal mining for their livelihoods.
One of the benefits of renewable energy is the lack of these high human costs. Not only does green power reduce carbon emissions and thus climate change, it has a lower impact on people and on ecosystems. An investment in green energy is an investment in a clean energy economy with new technology and new jobs. An investment in green electricity is an investment in healthy families and in the future of our planet.