{"id":3924,"date":"2015-03-06T11:32:31","date_gmt":"2015-03-06T17:32:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/?p=3924"},"modified":"2015-03-06T11:32:31","modified_gmt":"2015-03-06T17:32:31","slug":"that-gallon-of-gas-is-actually-costing-you-6-25","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/?p=3924","title":{"rendered":"That gallon of gas is actually costing you $6.25"},"content":{"rendered":"

March 6, 2015 – by Lindsay Abrams in Salon<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"That<\/a>(Credit:\u00a0nattanan\/Shutterstock<\/a>)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\n

Paying\u00a0$2.45<\/a>\u00a0for a gallon of gas is a lot more of a bargain than it sounds.<\/p>\n

If you took into account the health and environmental costs of burning fuel, finds a new\u00a0study<\/a>\u00a0from Duke University, the price for a gallon of regular would jump by $3.80.<\/p>\n

The study, which is published in the journal Climatic Change,\u00a0isn\u2019t showing us how much gas\u00a0should<\/em>\u00a0cost, but how much it actually\u00a0does<\/em>\u00a0cost \u2014 once you factor in the \u201csocial costs.\u201d Author\u00a0Drew T. Shindell, a professor of climate sciences, adapted the model used by the U.S. government to determine the\u00a0social cost of carbon<\/a>\u00a0for the gas pumps to unearth hidden costs like air pollution, healthcare costs, lowered crop yields and damages from extreme weather events tied to climate change.<\/p>\n

From that perspective, the price of diesel increases from $2.90 to $7.70, natural gas doubles, and then some, from 7 cents per kilowatt to 17 cents, and energy bills for coal-fired electricity quadruple, from 10 to 42 cents per kilowatt-hour. Shindell\u2019s model assigns little to no cost to nuclear and renewables, so they remain steady at about 10 cents per kilowatt-hour.<\/p>\n

It changes the relative value of our various fuel sources considerably:<\/p>\n

,\"\"<\/p>\n

Climatic Change<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\n
\n

\u201cWe think we know what the prices of fossil fuels are, but their impacts on climate and human health are much larger than previously realized,\u201d Shindell said in a statement.\u00a0\u201dWe\u2019re making decisions based on misleading costs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even the most careful models, of course, are just estimates \u2014 it\u2019s hard to factor in every potential cost, or to know with precision what exactly the extent of climate impacts will be. \u201cBut one thing there should be no debate over,\u201d Shindell said, \u201cis that the current assigned price of zero is not the right value.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

\"Lindsay<\/a>Lindsay Abrams is a staff writer at Salon, reporting on all things sustainable. Follow her on Twitter @readingirl, email labrams@salon.com.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

March 6, 2015 – by Lindsay Abrams in Salon (Credit:\u00a0nattanan\/Shutterstock) Paying\u00a0$2.45\u00a0for a gallon of gas is a lot more of a bargain than it sounds. If you took into account the health and environmental costs of burning fuel, finds a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[48,70,361,363,360,286,362],"class_list":["post-3924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-air-pollution","tag-climate-change","tag-greenhouse-gas-emissions","tag-news","tag-oil-and-gas","tag-public-health","tag-sustainability-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3924"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3924\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3925,"href":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3924\/revisions\/3925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/valleywatch.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}