Comment EI-19498
Received or sent (printed as 1/7/2013)
In 2013, it is bizarrely monstrous to promote coal burning. Only a deficient corporate management like the bookkeepers at Berkshire Hathaway, Inc., the largest United States of America corporation that refuses to disclose its carbon emissions, would be capable of proposing to burn coal to poison the poor children downwind of the power plants; to cause the dispatch of myriad mile and half long coal trains through our environment, our farms, and our communities; and to acidify our oceans, raise global temperatures and flood our capitals with rising sea levels. You must be aware that there is no one named as an accountable and competent person for the railroad owned by Berkshire Hathaway, Inc. SourceWatch provides the following information about the BNSF railroad owner, Berkshire Hathaway, Inc. Appalling as individual death and suffering are, the important thing to note is that these costs are imposed by the conglomerate on local communities in which the conglomerate operates. Death and disease attributable to fine particle pollution from MidAmerican Energy coal plants In 2010, Abt Associates issued a study commissioned by the Clean Air Task Force, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization, quantifying the deaths and other health effects attributable to fine particle pollution from coal-fired power plants. Fine particle pollution consists of a complex mixture of soot, heavy metals, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides. Among these particles, the most dangerous are those less than 2.5 microns in diameter, which are so tiny that they can evade the lung's natural defenses, enter the bloodstream, and be transported to vital organs. Impacts are especially severe among the elderly, children, and those with respiratory disease. The study found that over 13,000 deaths and tens of thousands of cases of chronic bronchitis, acute bronchitis, asthma, congestive heart failure, acute myocardial infarction, dysrhythmia, ischemic heart disease, chronic lung disease, and pneumonia each year are attributable to fine particle pollution from U.S. coal plant emissions. These deaths and illnesses are major examples of coal's external costs, i.e. uncompensated harms inflicted upon the public at large. Low-income and minority populations are disproportionately impacted as well, due to the tendency of companies to avoid locating power plants upwind of affluent communities. To monetize the health impact of fine particle pollution from each coal plant, Abt assigned a value of $7,300,000 to each 2010 mortality, based on a range of government and private studies. Valuations of illnesses ranged from $52 for an asthma episode to $440,000 for a case of chronic bronchitis. Table 1: Death and disease attributable to fine particle pollution from MidAmerican Energy coal plants Type of Impact____Annual Incidence_______Valuation Deaths_____________234________________$1.7 billion Heart attacks________362_______________$39.6 million Asthma attacks_____4,305________________$0.22 million Chronic bronchitis____152_______________ $67.5 million Asthma ER visits_____229________________ $.08 million Hospital admissions___167________________ $3.9 million I'll tell you why I like the cigarette business," he explained to Salomon-Chairman John Gutfreund in 1987, according to the book "Barbarians at the Gate." "It costs a penny to make. Sell it for a dollar. It's addictive. And there's fantastic brand loyalty." Source: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Warren_Buffett"
Submitted by: John Bremer
The Board publishes this comment in its environmental-comment table for this proceeding. It is quoted here as printed; nothing is inferred from it, and it states the commenter's own position in their own words, not this record's.
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