The growth of solar power is creating new jobs, but it is also the path to preventing the premature deaths caused by the coal industry.
Replacing coal with solar energy could prevent 52,000 premature deaths in the United States every year, according to an analysis by Michigan Technological University.
Researchers at Michigan Tech University analysed a number of public health studies and calculated the cost in terms of premature deaths due to respiratory, cardiac and cerebrovascular problems caused by pollutants released into the air from coal use. The study found that approximately 51,999 people die every year in the United States as a result of burning this fuel: if President Trump has always maintained that regulations limiting coal use are something that damages the country's economy and development, he now has one more reason to change his mind.
Based on the data analysed, it emerged that "many more lives are saved by the phasing out of coal," said Liz Perera, Climate Policy Director for the Sierra Club, the oldest and largest environmental organisation in the United States, which commented on the study's findings.
"The evolution of the United States energy system, through the use of clean technologies, will allow the United States to prevent thousands of premature deaths while at the same time becoming a global leader in the adoption of new renewable technologies," wrote the authors of the study published in the journal "Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews".
In the current historical moment, moreover, the transition would not even require major resources. On the one hand, clean technologies are becoming increasingly affordable; on the other, a reduction in conditions such as asthma, lung cancer, pulmonary disease, congestive heart failure and stroke in the population would represent a further saving in healthcare costs. Lower costs could thus free up new resources to be invested in transforming the energy sector and accelerate the shift from fossil fuels to clean technologies such as solar.
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Joshua Pearce and Emily Prehoda — a professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and a doctoral student, respectively, and co-authors of the study — calculated that 755 gigawatts of solar energy (at a cost of $1.45 billion) would be needed to replace all the energy currently produced by coal. On average, this would amount to a cost of approximately $1.1 million invested for every life saved. This figure does not, however, account for the value of solar energy or the healthcare costs saved. The researchers estimated that, under a net-metering scheme, the commercial credit for users would reach $1.5 million for every life saved.
Coal kills 52,000 people every year, yet it provides just 21,000 jobs. A residual figure when compared to the roughly 260,000 jobs created in the solar sector. Despite the evident competitiveness of solar and the decline of coal — now undeniable, solar accounts for only around 1.5 per cent of electricity generated in the United States. According to the researchers, the reason for solar's low penetration is essentially down to inertia and politics. Citing a personal example, the Michigan Tech professor said that he and other colleagues have helped some people bring solar energy into their homes even though local regulations currently prohibit it from being connected to the grid. "It's rules like these that prevent people from doing it [adopting solar energy] individually," he said. "I have Republican friends who have installed solar panels not to save the whales or anything like that, but to save money." In short, clean energy can not only preserve the environment and help people live better and longer, but it is also a matter of economic advantage — and, as Perera of the Sierra Club pointed out, "Trump cannot stop the will of the market and the will of the people to choose clean energy."
