Coal is cheap in short run, but it will prove costly in end

Coal as a fuel has one thing going for it: cost. It’s cheap because it’s still plentiful. That’s why some 150 new coal-fired electrical plants now sit on drawing boards around the country, and many more around the world. In the short run, coal amounts to the cheapest means of generating electricity.

In the longer run, however, it will become the most expensive. That’s the killer problem with coal. Yes, it will stay low-cost for a while. After that, if we continue putting burning coal’s major byproduct, carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere, Mother Earth’s hot flashes will increase in severity and frequency. And that spells big trouble for our home planet.

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