If oil and gas prices included the cost of pollution, renewable energy would be cheaper than oil and gas.

Date:   9/3/2012 12:17:15 PM ( 12 y ago)

If oil and gas prices included the cost of pollution, renewable energy would be cheaper than oil and gas.


Imagine if gasoline cost $5 per liter, or the USA equivalent of about $20/gallon!!

Oh, it DOES? Yes, European nations pay $10/US gallon of gas, and even Canada pays $1.50/liter, which is the US equivalent of over $6/gallon.

Americans are paying just $3.50/gallon of gasoline, despite that they import most of what they use, plus they use most of the world's production of crude oil. You would think that kind of demand would drive up prices.
{Links - gas prices in the USA> http://www.eia.gov/petroleum/gasdiesel/
}


Instead of looking at why US prices are so low, lets look at what costs are NOT being included: pollution.

It is a negative thing to say "polluter pay", and that just adds cost to the consumer down the line. Besides, the goal should be to REDUCE pollution, not just punish polluters.

However, there seems to be no other way to reduce pollution, and there are more reasons to reduce fossil fuel pollutants than just the much-denied global warming:
- fossil fuel pollution is invariably toxic, causing cancers and many other diseases.
- fossil fuel CO2 emissions are acidifying the ocean [Google it!] and if we carry on like we are now the oceans will not support what life is left in them, and eventually they actually become a steaming cesspool of rancid crap - within just a few centuries [it HAS happened before, yes].

Ok, I cannot stop myself... AND GLOBAL WARMING!! But lets not go there...

If "polluter pay" was in effect, the cost of gasoline would double. This would cause a wonderfull repercussion economically where RENEWABLE energy would be cheaper than fossil fuels as a source of energy.

I am not proposing this JUST to punish the oil industry [though I would like to do that], I am proposing this because it is right on two accounts:
1] that renewable energy's costs should be compared to the true cost of fossil fuels
2] that fossil fuel pollution is costing us all in terms of health care and environmental decline.

Its not going to happen anytime soon under our controlled political systems, but one day we will realise that the true costs of fossil fuels should, and must, include the costs of fossil fuel pollution.


-------------------- Links -
gas prices in the USA> http://www.eia.gov/petroleum/gasdiesel/
}

in Europe> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-29/record-high-gasoline-further-burdens...


 

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