Will the recent concerns of the condition of the environment truly change the way energy is produced?

The the Wall Street Journal blog post “Who’s Afraid of a Clean-Energy Future?” addresses the question of will energy production become cleaner and how will that happen. In the blog the author explains that the price of using fossil fuels may appear cheaper than wind or solar energy. However these costs do not include “externalities”, which are the costs absorbed by society which are not included in the sticker price.

I completely agree that, although cleaner forms of energy are more expensive, when you take into account the costs of an oil spill cleanup or the health risks of burning coal for example, dirtier forms of energy may be just as expensive. Not will cleaner energy benefit the world from an environmental standpoint, but it will also eliminate many of these hidden costs associated with oil and coal consumption.

As the need for more environmentally friendly forms of energy grows, more and more business opportunities will arise that will accomplish moral and financial success.

http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2010/01/14/whos-afraid-of-a-clean-energy-future/