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Paying Too Much for Energy? The True Costs of Our Energy Choices

Paying Too Much for Energy? The True Costs of Our Energy Choices

Full Title: Paying Too Much for Energy? The True Costs of Our Energy Choices
Author(s): Michael Greenstone and Adam Looney
Publisher(s): Dædalus
Publication Date: May 1, 2012
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):

Energy consumption is critical to economic growth and quality of life. America’s energy system, however, is malfunctioning. The status quo is characterized by a tilted playing field, where energy choices are based on the visible costs that appear on utility bills and at gas pumps. This system masks the “external” costs arising from those energy choices, including shorter lives, higher health care expenses, a changing climate, and weakened national security. As a result, we pay unnecessarily high costs for energy. New “rules of the road” could level the energy playing field. Drawing from our work for The Hamilton Project, this paper offers four principles for reforming U.S. energy policies in order to increase Americans’ well-being.

 

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