The recent coal ash spill points to the flawed economics of energy. Some forms of energy like coal are fairly inexpensive using the current method of adding costs. The problem is not all of the costs have been tallied - one needs to add air pollution (some of this is currently done, but the techniques are imperfectly designed - ask people within 100 miles of a coal plant about the mercury content of local fish). Carbon emissions are ignored despite enormous costs looming on the horizon, mining problems are often ignored as are solid wastes.
If any progress is to be made, it seems reasonable to tally up the real costs (not easy when you talk about carbon emissions) and pass them on to the end user. Of course this seems unlikely in a recession and the embedded energy companies have enormous political clout.
Obama's new cabinet nominations for DOE and the environment understand all of this. Whether something will be done is another question.
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