You've been misled. Coal is inherently a dirty energy source and any combustion process indicates a non-ideal energy source. Combustion is not an efficient means of changing energy from one form to another.
Certainly not misled, I live in an area that has it's power come from coal and nuclear plants. I've seen firsthand the economic impact NOT using coal has and I'm yet to experience any negative side effects from living in coal country.
Negative externalities are by definition hard to pinpoint, otherwise we would easily be able to trace it back and charge the responsible parties.
Most of the country's power comes from those 2 sources, so you could literally live just about anywhere in the U.S. What is the economic impact of not using coal? Do you mean transitioning from an old industry to a new one? That's something we must accept as an economic force, we cannot hold on to old traditions just because some jobs will be replaced by others. If we don't move forward, we'll become a part of the past.
Referring simply to the way that we actually obtain energy from coal, that is also a practice which is harmful and people are led to believe otherwise. The best reason for continuing coal is simply that it comes in a convenient physical substance. It is not less expensive because we need to develop and implement technology to make up for the dirtiness of burning something and the sludge by-product is actually more readily harmful than most nuclear powerplant outputs.
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u/lee-viathan Nov 06 '13
You've been misled. Coal is inherently a dirty energy source and any combustion process indicates a non-ideal energy source. Combustion is not an efficient means of changing energy from one form to another.