The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
Coal Costs the US $62 Billion in External Costs –
NRC Report
October 28th, 2009
Last week the National Research Council (part of the National Academy of Science) released a report that the US Government commissioned back in 2005 to find the true cost of our energy titled, “Hidden Costs of Energy: Unpriced Consequences of Energy Production and Use.”
The quick and dirty: Our energy production and use in 2005 cost us $120 billion in externalities, over half of which, $62 billion, come from coal.
imb printer and media blog by Pete on October 23, 2009
In reality, per gallon, gas is one of the lesser expensive items on the list. At approximately $3.00 per gallon, it is about twice the cost of Kool-Aid per gallon and only slightly less than auto-antifreeze.
Coming in at about double the price of gas is Evian bottled water. This gourmet H2O bottled from the French Alps costs $6.40 per gallon. … Also in this range is domestic beer, coming in at right around $9.00 per gallon.
A few of the more expensive liquids may surprise you. Vanilla extract, often bought in bottles that are less than six ounces is $128.00 for an entire gallon. You could bake quite a few cakes for that price! Penicillin clocks in at $302, very reasonable considering it may save your life. Speaking of life, human blood is about $1500.00 a gallon. Again, a very reasonable price to pay for life, but it really puts the per gallon cost of printer ink into perspective.
The study showed that the average cost of black and white printer ink is $2700.00 per gallon. Since most people use colored ink in addition to black and white ink, I estimated the cost of a color cartridge. Per gallon, the approximate cost of an average quality ink was $5500. It costs nearly four times as much to refill your printer as it would to keep your heart pumping. [Emphasis added.]
Report tallies hidden energy costs
The average retail cost of U.S. coal-fired electricity was 9 cents per kilowatt-hour in 2007 (the most recent year for which data are available). But there are health and environmental costs of that power that consumers don't pay, at least as part of their electric bill. According to a new report, accounting for those costs would double the true cost of shooting some electrons through the nation's power grid.
As long as such costs remain hidden, they risk skewing policy and purchasing decisions. A new report released today by the National Research Council now attempts to compute and tally those hidden health and environmental costs associated with energy. And although the sums it offers up are huge, the report acknowledges that society may decide they’re well worth accepting in light of the benefits provided by that energy.
Now about that coal, which supplies nearly half of U.S. electricity: The NRC report finds that the hidden per-kWh health and environmental costs average a little more than 3 cents, but can be as high as 12 cents. The big differential largely reflects the age of plants — newer ones must employ better stack-gas cleaning technologies — and how much sulfur the coal contains.
From Theatlantic.com
Monday, June 1, 2009
No that's not a typo: that's the statistic according to USA Today. The folks over there have done some really great work this week with another interesting interactive chart attached to an article about the nation's debt. If they keep this up, I'll have to stop considering it a useless free newspaper I step over when leaving a hotel room. The numbers it reports are staggering. [Phi Beta Iota: tip of the hat to USA Today, live link above recommended.]
By Deborah Hyde
19 October 2009
The Conservative MP for Braintree calculates the true level of government debt is £2,200 billion (or £85,610 per household), equivalent to 157% of GDP.
He said the latest official figure of £805 billion does not take into account:
These hidden liabilities total £1,395 billion (100% of GDP).
See also:
The Atlantic May 2009 by Simon Johnson
The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time.
Sat, Oct 17 2009
It can now be shown that the energy reaching the Earth from the Sun is actually acting as information. Information and energy are interchangeable in much the same way that energy and matter are interchangeable, and formulas similar to those for matter and energy (E=mc2) can be used to express this interchangeability. Energy is expressing itself as information when it acts in an anti-entropic manner, thereby reducing the randomness in a system or increasing its information. This understanding of information as an anti-entropic activity makes it possible to objectively measure many qualities important to our lives which were formerly measurable only by the crude means of the dollar economy, sentimental attachment, or aesthetic tastes.
