2nd Short Post. Response to in-class presentation ESPM

Environmental and Natural Resource Economics

Jay Coggins came to our class to talk about environmental and natural resource economics last Thursday. He started of his presentation by explaining where most of the humans energy comes from. He claimed that if society moves to mostly renewable energy and eliminate all fossil fuels it would benefit our environment greatly but cost hundreds of trillions of dollars. Every year renewable sources get much cheaper while energy plants that use resources like coal stay around the same because they constantly have to buy materials and run the plant. Most renewable energy sources once they are up can stay running at a relatively low cost like solar panels and wind turbines. It may be expensive to setup these solar panels or wind turbines but would save society a tremendous amount of money in the long run. People claim that moving to renewable sources is more costly than continuing to use what we use now but Professor Coggins said it is not. There is actually a 2 trillion dollar difference between moving to renewable energy then if we were to do nothing and stay doing the same things we are today. He continued to strengthen his stance by giving examples like the cost of a solar panel is just 10% of what it was 10 to 15 years ago while the process of burning coal and fossil fuels has remained the same. All in all, Professor Coggins claims that is important to switch to renewable energy for economic reasons and for the environment.

Questions: Why aren’t there more solar or wind farms if it is cheaper?

How effective are these renewable sources?