NY Times Op-Ed
July 8, 2007
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Over dinner with friends in London the other night, the conversation drifted to global warming and whether anything was really being done to reverse it. One guest, Sameh El-Shahat, a furniture designer, heaped particular scorn on programs that enable people to offset their excessive carbon emissions by funding green projects elsewhere. “Who really checks that it’s being done?” he asked. And how much difference does it really make?
But then he hit on an ingenious idea: If people really want to generate money to plant trees or finance green power, why not have them offset their real sins, not just their carbon excesses? We started to play with his idea: Imagine if you could offset the whole Ten Commandments.
No, really, think about it. Imagine if there were a Web site — I’d call it GreenSinai.com — where every time you thought you had violated one of the Ten Commandments, or you wanted to violate one of them but did not want to feel guilty about it, you could buy carbon credits to offset your sins.
The motto of Britain’s Conservative Party today is “Vote Blue, Go Green.” GreenSinai’s motto could be: “Live Bad, Go Green.” That would generate some income.
Here’s how it would work: One day, you’re out in the backyard mowing the lawn and suddenly you covet your neighbor’s wife. Hey, it happens — that’s why “thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife” is one of the Ten Commandments. No problem. You just go to GreenSinai.com and buy 100 trees in the Amazon or fund a project to capture methane from cow dung in India — and, presto, you’re free and clear.
Obviously there would be a sliding scale. Taking God’s name in vain or erecting an idol might cost you only a few solar water heaters for a Chinese village, whereas bearing false witness or stealing would set you back a pilot sugar ethanol plant in Louisiana.
As for adultery, well, I think that’s where the big money could be made. My guess is that we could achieve a carbon-neutral world by 2020 if we just set up a system for people to offset their adultery by reversing deforestation of tropical rain forests or funding mega wind and solar power systems in China and India.
O.K., O.K., more seriously, I raise this issue of carbon offsets because they’re symptomatic of the larger problem we face in confronting climate change: everyone wants it to happen, but without pain or sacrifice. On balance, I think carbon-offsetting is a good thing — my family has purchased offsets — if for no other reason than it directs resources toward clean technologies that might not have been funded and, therefore, moves us down the innovation curve faster.
But the danger, argues Michael Sandel, Harvard’s noted political philosopher, “is that carbon offsets will become, at least for some, a painless mechanism to buy our way out of the more fundamental changes in habits, attitudes and way of life that are actually required to address the climate problem.”
“If someone drives a Hummer and buys carbon offsets to salve his conscience, that is better than driving the Hummer and doing nothing,” added Mr. Sandel, author of “The Case Against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering.” “But it would be even better to trade in the Hummer for a hybrid. The risk is that carbon offsets will make Hummers seem respectable rather than irresponsible, and distract us, as a nation, from harder, bigger changes in our energy policy.”
People often refer to the current climate buzz as “a green revolution,” but the very term revolution suggests a fundamental break with past habits, attitudes and public policies. Yet, when you suggest a carbon tax or a higher gasoline tax — initiatives that would redirect resources and change habits at the scale actually needed to impact global warming — what is the first thing you hear in Congress? “Impossible — you can’t use the T-word.”
A revolution without sacrifice where everyone is a winner? There’s no such thing.
Katherine Ellison wrote a wonderful piece on this topic for Salon.com in which she quoted Stephen Schneider, the Stanford University climatologist, as saying: “Volunteerism doesn’t work. It’s about as effective as voluntary speed limits. No cops, no judges: road carnage. No rules, no fines: greenhouse gases. We’re going to triple or quadruple the CO2 in the atmosphere with no policy. I don’t believe offsets are just a distraction. But we’ll have failed if that’s all we do.”
There’s a saying at the Pentagon that “a vision without resources is a hallucination.” For my money, the green revolution today is still a hallucination.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Brazil: Leader Chides Europe on Biofuels
By REUTERS
European competitors are trying to undermine Brazil’s biofuels production by raising environmental concerns, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said. Brazil is the world’s largest exporter of ethanol and a pioneer in developing biodiesel. It started a program to fuel cars with ethanol derived from sugar cane 30 years ago. “We have adversaries that will make up any kind of slander against the quality of ethanol and biodiesel,” Mr. da Silva said on his weekly radio show. Asked about reports in European newspapers that biofuels could contribute to deforesting the Amazon, he said, “I told them the Portuguese, who arrived in 1500, introduced sugar cane 470 years ago and it didn’t reach the Amazon for a simple reason — the temperature isn’t suitable.” The United States and Brazil signed an accord in March to jointly promote biofuel production in South America and Africa.
European competitors are trying to undermine Brazil’s biofuels production by raising environmental concerns, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said. Brazil is the world’s largest exporter of ethanol and a pioneer in developing biodiesel. It started a program to fuel cars with ethanol derived from sugar cane 30 years ago. “We have adversaries that will make up any kind of slander against the quality of ethanol and biodiesel,” Mr. da Silva said on his weekly radio show. Asked about reports in European newspapers that biofuels could contribute to deforesting the Amazon, he said, “I told them the Portuguese, who arrived in 1500, introduced sugar cane 470 years ago and it didn’t reach the Amazon for a simple reason — the temperature isn’t suitable.” The United States and Brazil signed an accord in March to jointly promote biofuel production in South America and Africa.
UMaine Awarded More Than $1.5 Million for Wood Bioproduct Research
April 5, 2007
Contact: Sandra Neily (207) 581-2831; David Munson (207) 581-3777
ORONO, Maine - The Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded more than $1.5 million in federal funding to the University of Maine to advance the university's ongoing efforts to develop methods for converting biomass from Maine's forests into fuels and valuable chemicals. The state will contribute 50 percent in matching funds to the multi-faceted project through the Maine Economic Improvement Fund.
The money, which was awarded through the DOE's Experimental Programs to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR), will be added to the $6.9 million the Forest Bioproducts Research Initiative (FBRI) received as part of the National Science Foundation's EPSCoR award in 2006.
The UMaine initiative is a truly collaborative, multidisciplinary effort that brings together scientists from educational institutions and businesses across the state to develop effective and efficient methods for transforming waste products from paper processing and other wood-based enterprises into fuels, plastics, and other materials.
This project adds the thermal conversion pathway to our earlier biochemical conversion focus for the utilization of woody biomass to produce biofuels and other co-products, says Hemant Pendse, chair of UMaine's Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering. Together these projects put UMaine in the position of strength to deal with the entire spectrum of technical issues involved in biomass conversion.
Supporting 12 researchers from across the state, the new research cluster will allow UMaine to expand its efforts to overcome the technological barriers faced by Maine companies currently working to develop effective techniques for producing wood-based fuels and chemicals within the wood products industry's existing infrastructure.
Forest biomass, including logging residue, pulp mill residue and spent liquors from pulp mills, hogfuel and sawdust, represents a significant renewable resource in Maine. Efficient use of this resource using our existing forest products industry manufacturing assets will help us save Maine jobs and build new businesses, said Pendse. New technologies coming out of university laboratories will help us to advance forest biorefinery deployment in Maine.
By using the funding to create a highly integrated and focused infrastructure for research, the project promises rapid advances in the area of bioproducts for Maine businesses and will help to establish Maine as a leader in bioproduct research and production.
This year, the Department of Energy awarded grants totaling $7.5 million to universities in Maine, New Hampshire, Delaware and Kentucky for research ranging from biofuels to nanomaterials, with states matching at least 50 percent of the awarded funds. The grants are part of an experimental program to improve the capability of universities to conduct nationally competitive, energy-related research in states that have historically received less federal research and development funding.
Contact: Sandra Neily (207) 581-2831; David Munson (207) 581-3777
ORONO, Maine - The Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded more than $1.5 million in federal funding to the University of Maine to advance the university's ongoing efforts to develop methods for converting biomass from Maine's forests into fuels and valuable chemicals. The state will contribute 50 percent in matching funds to the multi-faceted project through the Maine Economic Improvement Fund.
The money, which was awarded through the DOE's Experimental Programs to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR), will be added to the $6.9 million the Forest Bioproducts Research Initiative (FBRI) received as part of the National Science Foundation's EPSCoR award in 2006.
The UMaine initiative is a truly collaborative, multidisciplinary effort that brings together scientists from educational institutions and businesses across the state to develop effective and efficient methods for transforming waste products from paper processing and other wood-based enterprises into fuels, plastics, and other materials.
This project adds the thermal conversion pathway to our earlier biochemical conversion focus for the utilization of woody biomass to produce biofuels and other co-products, says Hemant Pendse, chair of UMaine's Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering. Together these projects put UMaine in the position of strength to deal with the entire spectrum of technical issues involved in biomass conversion.
Supporting 12 researchers from across the state, the new research cluster will allow UMaine to expand its efforts to overcome the technological barriers faced by Maine companies currently working to develop effective techniques for producing wood-based fuels and chemicals within the wood products industry's existing infrastructure.
Forest biomass, including logging residue, pulp mill residue and spent liquors from pulp mills, hogfuel and sawdust, represents a significant renewable resource in Maine. Efficient use of this resource using our existing forest products industry manufacturing assets will help us save Maine jobs and build new businesses, said Pendse. New technologies coming out of university laboratories will help us to advance forest biorefinery deployment in Maine.
By using the funding to create a highly integrated and focused infrastructure for research, the project promises rapid advances in the area of bioproducts for Maine businesses and will help to establish Maine as a leader in bioproduct research and production.
This year, the Department of Energy awarded grants totaling $7.5 million to universities in Maine, New Hampshire, Delaware and Kentucky for research ranging from biofuels to nanomaterials, with states matching at least 50 percent of the awarded funds. The grants are part of an experimental program to improve the capability of universities to conduct nationally competitive, energy-related research in states that have historically received less federal research and development funding.
Friday, July 06, 2007
True Cost of Oil
I often think about the true cost of oil. I know in my gut that what we as consumers pay at the pumps is far from the price "true" costs would dictate. But $10+ per gallon? Such a price would certainly be high enough to change buying habits would it not? I would hope so.
I encourage you to read the following article on this very subject. The author attempts to leave no stone unturned.
The True Cost of Oil: $65 Trillion a Year?
2007-06-29
By Chris Nelder
Quick: What's the most common criticism of renewable energy?
Right: That it's not economical. Too expensive compared to cheap oil, coal, natural gas, and nuclear.
And that's true, if you have a calculator that can only add, and you don't count a bunch of stuff.
But that's not the way we do math around here. We like to figure out the real cost of things. It's the only intelligent way to invest!
Let's try adding up everything for once, leaving nothing out, with no "externalities."
Crude Cost: $69 a Barrel
Neal Dikeman, partner at energy investment banking firm Jane Capital, adds up the production cost of oil this way:
Finding cost: $7.5/bbl (JS Herold 3 year avg costs for global integrated oil companies).
Lifting, production, and transportation cost: $6.5/bbl (JS Herold 3 year avg costs for global integrated oil companies).
Refining cost: <$5/bbl (10Ks from US independent refiners 2004-2005; the majors are lower).
So for a typical major oil company like Exxon, with its vertically integrated business from the wellhead all the way to the consumer, the average actual production cost is $14 to $19/bbl, depending on a lot of variables.
But of course two thirds of our oil is imported, and for that we pay at the delivery point: West Texas Intermediate is $68.97 today, NYMEX crude future is $69.12; call it $69/bbl in round numbers.
Counted in terms of transfer of wealth, at current prices, the U.S. sends about $313 million each day to OPEC for crude oil. That's $114 billion per year, just to OPEC countries . . . countries that are mostly dictatorships and oligarchies hostile to us.
If all of our 21 Mbpd consumption of crude oil were bought at the market price, it would cost the economy $1.5 billion per day, or $529 billion per year.
It is such direct fuel costs, as they contribute to the price of grid electricity, that are compared to renewable energy to show that the latter is too expensive. But have we really counted the cost of oil? Not even close.
Cost of Dependence: $233 Billion a Year
According to a 2000 study for the Department of Energy, there is a significant cost attached to the mere fact of our dependence. Supply disruptions, price hikes, and loss of wealth suffered through the oil market upheavals have cost the U.S. economy around $7 trillion (1998 dollars) over the 30 years from 1970 to 2000.
The study focused on three primary factors: macroeconomic adjustment costs, the potential loss of GDP, and wealth transfer. Still, the study notes, "These cost estimates do not include military, strategic or political costs associated with U.S. and world dependence on oil imports." (We'll get to that.)
All Economic Costs: $480 a Barrel
Milton Copulus, the head of the National Defense Council Foundation, has a different view. And as the former principal energy analyst for the Heritage Foundation, a 12-year member of the National Petroleum Council, a Reagan White House alum, and an advisor to half a dozen U.S. Energy Secretaries, various Secretaries of Defense, and two directors of the CIA, he knows his stuff.
After taking into account the direct and indirect costs of oil, the economic costs of oil supply disruption, and military expenditures, he estimates the true cost of oil at a stunning $480 a barrel.
That would make the "real" cost of filling up a family sedan about $220, and filling up a large SUV about $325 (when oil was $10 a barrel cheaper than it is now!).
Due to the enormous military cost of protecting Persian Gulf imports, the hidden cost of oil from that region amounts to $7.41 per gallon of gasoline. The cheapest gas out in my part of the Bay Area is $3.11 a gallon for regular. Add them together, and the true cost of my gas is probably around $10.52 a gallon.
We use 21 million barrels a day of oil. At $480 a barrel, that's $10 trillion a year draining from the national coffers.
And we haven't even tried to count the blood.
But we're not done yet.
Government Subsidies
Ah, everyone's favorite, the government subsidies.
It's a surprisingly difficult thing to put a boundary around, because there are so many direct and indirect ways in which the government supports the oil industry, and every study has its own list of things to leave in and things to leave out.
For example, none of the studies I found included the hidden subsidy of leasing public lands to oil companies for next to nothing, which in essence assigns zero value to the oil extracted from the ground, paying the public nothing for the loss of its natural capital.
One 1998 study by the International Center for Technology Assessment (CTA) looked at petroleum industry subsidies, including the percentage depletion allowance and tax-funded programs that directly subsidize oil production and consumption, among other things.
It assessed up to $17.8 billion per year in tax subsidies, plus government program subsidies (such as vehicle R&D programs, highway construction, and environmental cleanup) of between $38 billion and $114.6 billion per year.
They pegged health and social costs at an additional $231.7 billion to $942.9 billion per year, counting factors such as health issues due to pollution, loss of crop yields, and so on.
As for related costs, such as the direct and indirect costs of traffic delays, traffic accidents, subsidized parking and the like, they counted another $191.4 billion to $474.1 billion per year.
Adjusting the estimates to 2006 dollars and rounding, that makes a total of between $68 and $161 billion in government subsidies, between $283 billion and $1,152 billion in health and social costs, and between $233 billion and $579 billion in related costs.
All told, $584 billion on the low side, $1.9 trillion on the high side.
Environmental Costs
Burning fossil fuels has serious environmental costs, from water and soil pollution, to loss of species, to loss of ecosystem services such as cleaning the water and air. And yet nobody ever pays those costs directly. They are "externalized" onto the environment: you and me, and everything that lives around us.
The Union of Concerned Scientists reviewed some studies on this subject in a 1995 article citing several estimates: "Delucchi (1995) estimates the total cost in 1991 of environmental externalities to be $54 billion to $232 billion. Human mortality and morbidity due to air pollution accounts for over three quarters of the total environmental cost and could be as high as $182 billion annually. For the Los Angeles area, Hall et al. (1992) estimates the annual health-based cost from ozone and particulate exposure alone to be almost $10 billion."
Taking the upper estimate (because there's no way their list of factors was comprehensive), and adjusting for inflation, call it a total cost of $345 billion per year.
Climate Change Cost
Then there is the cost of climate change owing to the production of CO2 from burning oil and gas.
A 2006 study by the U.K.'s New Economics Foundation looked at these costs company by company and concluded that the climate change costs far outweighed the oil companies' profits.
Using a government estimate that put the cost of environmental damage at $35 per ton of carbon dioxide, they calculated the cost of emissions from BP's oil business from production all the way through to burning the fuel. They came up with a damage bill of $51 billion a year. But BP's profit was only $19 billion, putting the entire enterprise $31 billion in the red!
The same calculation put Shell $23 billion in the red.
Once you take into account the externalized costs, the oil business isn't even worth doing.
Somewhere up there, Sitting Bull is saying "Duh!"
Given the U.S.'s emissions of some 1,614 million metric tons, and using the $35/ton figure, that gives us a CO2 bill of about $56 trillion a year.
Summing It Up
To be honest, I have no idea how one could sum up these estimates. There are too many different boundaries for the costs that are counted and a lot of troublesome math that wouldn't yield a terribly significant number anyway.
But, just for fun, let's add up the above numbers.
All economic costs: $10 trillion.
Cost of dependence: $233 billion.
Government subsidies, health and social costs, and related costs: $1.9 trillion.
Environmental costs: $345 billion.
Climate change costs: $56 trillion.
Total: About $68.5 trillion a year.
And our GDP is about $13 trillion a year.
OK, undoubtedly some of the costs are being counted more than once.
But however you add it up, it's clear that we're running up an enormous tab with Mother Nature, even if "nobody" is paying for it.
Which makes it incredibly obvious why renewable energy is the answer. Almost all of those costs go away with renewables, and we could probably replace our entire energy generation system for that kind of cash.
No wonder $71 billion of new capital was poured into the renewables sector last year.
And you'd better believe Green Chip Stocks members are getting a piece of this action too!
Until next time,
--Chris
I encourage you to read the following article on this very subject. The author attempts to leave no stone unturned.
The True Cost of Oil: $65 Trillion a Year?
2007-06-29
By Chris Nelder
Quick: What's the most common criticism of renewable energy?
Right: That it's not economical. Too expensive compared to cheap oil, coal, natural gas, and nuclear.
And that's true, if you have a calculator that can only add, and you don't count a bunch of stuff.
But that's not the way we do math around here. We like to figure out the real cost of things. It's the only intelligent way to invest!
Let's try adding up everything for once, leaving nothing out, with no "externalities."
Crude Cost: $69 a Barrel
Neal Dikeman, partner at energy investment banking firm Jane Capital, adds up the production cost of oil this way:
Finding cost: $7.5/bbl (JS Herold 3 year avg costs for global integrated oil companies).
Lifting, production, and transportation cost: $6.5/bbl (JS Herold 3 year avg costs for global integrated oil companies).
Refining cost: <$5/bbl (10Ks from US independent refiners 2004-2005; the majors are lower).
So for a typical major oil company like Exxon, with its vertically integrated business from the wellhead all the way to the consumer, the average actual production cost is $14 to $19/bbl, depending on a lot of variables.
But of course two thirds of our oil is imported, and for that we pay at the delivery point: West Texas Intermediate is $68.97 today, NYMEX crude future is $69.12; call it $69/bbl in round numbers.
Counted in terms of transfer of wealth, at current prices, the U.S. sends about $313 million each day to OPEC for crude oil. That's $114 billion per year, just to OPEC countries . . . countries that are mostly dictatorships and oligarchies hostile to us.
If all of our 21 Mbpd consumption of crude oil were bought at the market price, it would cost the economy $1.5 billion per day, or $529 billion per year.
It is such direct fuel costs, as they contribute to the price of grid electricity, that are compared to renewable energy to show that the latter is too expensive. But have we really counted the cost of oil? Not even close.
Cost of Dependence: $233 Billion a Year
According to a 2000 study for the Department of Energy, there is a significant cost attached to the mere fact of our dependence. Supply disruptions, price hikes, and loss of wealth suffered through the oil market upheavals have cost the U.S. economy around $7 trillion (1998 dollars) over the 30 years from 1970 to 2000.
The study focused on three primary factors: macroeconomic adjustment costs, the potential loss of GDP, and wealth transfer. Still, the study notes, "These cost estimates do not include military, strategic or political costs associated with U.S. and world dependence on oil imports." (We'll get to that.)
All Economic Costs: $480 a Barrel
Milton Copulus, the head of the National Defense Council Foundation, has a different view. And as the former principal energy analyst for the Heritage Foundation, a 12-year member of the National Petroleum Council, a Reagan White House alum, and an advisor to half a dozen U.S. Energy Secretaries, various Secretaries of Defense, and two directors of the CIA, he knows his stuff.
After taking into account the direct and indirect costs of oil, the economic costs of oil supply disruption, and military expenditures, he estimates the true cost of oil at a stunning $480 a barrel.
That would make the "real" cost of filling up a family sedan about $220, and filling up a large SUV about $325 (when oil was $10 a barrel cheaper than it is now!).
Due to the enormous military cost of protecting Persian Gulf imports, the hidden cost of oil from that region amounts to $7.41 per gallon of gasoline. The cheapest gas out in my part of the Bay Area is $3.11 a gallon for regular. Add them together, and the true cost of my gas is probably around $10.52 a gallon.
We use 21 million barrels a day of oil. At $480 a barrel, that's $10 trillion a year draining from the national coffers.
And we haven't even tried to count the blood.
But we're not done yet.
Government Subsidies
Ah, everyone's favorite, the government subsidies.
It's a surprisingly difficult thing to put a boundary around, because there are so many direct and indirect ways in which the government supports the oil industry, and every study has its own list of things to leave in and things to leave out.
For example, none of the studies I found included the hidden subsidy of leasing public lands to oil companies for next to nothing, which in essence assigns zero value to the oil extracted from the ground, paying the public nothing for the loss of its natural capital.
One 1998 study by the International Center for Technology Assessment (CTA) looked at petroleum industry subsidies, including the percentage depletion allowance and tax-funded programs that directly subsidize oil production and consumption, among other things.
It assessed up to $17.8 billion per year in tax subsidies, plus government program subsidies (such as vehicle R&D programs, highway construction, and environmental cleanup) of between $38 billion and $114.6 billion per year.
They pegged health and social costs at an additional $231.7 billion to $942.9 billion per year, counting factors such as health issues due to pollution, loss of crop yields, and so on.
As for related costs, such as the direct and indirect costs of traffic delays, traffic accidents, subsidized parking and the like, they counted another $191.4 billion to $474.1 billion per year.
Adjusting the estimates to 2006 dollars and rounding, that makes a total of between $68 and $161 billion in government subsidies, between $283 billion and $1,152 billion in health and social costs, and between $233 billion and $579 billion in related costs.
All told, $584 billion on the low side, $1.9 trillion on the high side.
Environmental Costs
Burning fossil fuels has serious environmental costs, from water and soil pollution, to loss of species, to loss of ecosystem services such as cleaning the water and air. And yet nobody ever pays those costs directly. They are "externalized" onto the environment: you and me, and everything that lives around us.
The Union of Concerned Scientists reviewed some studies on this subject in a 1995 article citing several estimates: "Delucchi (1995) estimates the total cost in 1991 of environmental externalities to be $54 billion to $232 billion. Human mortality and morbidity due to air pollution accounts for over three quarters of the total environmental cost and could be as high as $182 billion annually. For the Los Angeles area, Hall et al. (1992) estimates the annual health-based cost from ozone and particulate exposure alone to be almost $10 billion."
Taking the upper estimate (because there's no way their list of factors was comprehensive), and adjusting for inflation, call it a total cost of $345 billion per year.
Climate Change Cost
Then there is the cost of climate change owing to the production of CO2 from burning oil and gas.
A 2006 study by the U.K.'s New Economics Foundation looked at these costs company by company and concluded that the climate change costs far outweighed the oil companies' profits.
Using a government estimate that put the cost of environmental damage at $35 per ton of carbon dioxide, they calculated the cost of emissions from BP's oil business from production all the way through to burning the fuel. They came up with a damage bill of $51 billion a year. But BP's profit was only $19 billion, putting the entire enterprise $31 billion in the red!
The same calculation put Shell $23 billion in the red.
Once you take into account the externalized costs, the oil business isn't even worth doing.
Somewhere up there, Sitting Bull is saying "Duh!"
Given the U.S.'s emissions of some 1,614 million metric tons, and using the $35/ton figure, that gives us a CO2 bill of about $56 trillion a year.
Summing It Up
To be honest, I have no idea how one could sum up these estimates. There are too many different boundaries for the costs that are counted and a lot of troublesome math that wouldn't yield a terribly significant number anyway.
But, just for fun, let's add up the above numbers.
All economic costs: $10 trillion.
Cost of dependence: $233 billion.
Government subsidies, health and social costs, and related costs: $1.9 trillion.
Environmental costs: $345 billion.
Climate change costs: $56 trillion.
Total: About $68.5 trillion a year.
And our GDP is about $13 trillion a year.
OK, undoubtedly some of the costs are being counted more than once.
But however you add it up, it's clear that we're running up an enormous tab with Mother Nature, even if "nobody" is paying for it.
Which makes it incredibly obvious why renewable energy is the answer. Almost all of those costs go away with renewables, and we could probably replace our entire energy generation system for that kind of cash.
No wonder $71 billion of new capital was poured into the renewables sector last year.
And you'd better believe Green Chip Stocks members are getting a piece of this action too!
Until next time,
--Chris
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