[1]http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2012/05/americas-f...

Coal, however, is only seemingly cheap. Most of the actual costs of coal are externalized, and not seen at the meter. Rather, they show up at the doctor's office:

http://solar.gwu.edu/index_files/Resources_files/epstein_ful...

http://www.counterpunch.org/2009/03/12/hiding-the-costs-of-c...

The Princeton professor in the second article estimates that accounting for the externalities of coal would more than triple the meter price of coal power. The Harvard study in the first article estimates a somewhat greater cost based on looking at a wider range of factors.

The biggest piece of good news for the environment in Years is being driven by a "brown" industry in cowboy America, who woul have predicted it?

(There was twice as much increase in natural gas as there was increase in renewables, but renewables produce approximately 0 carbon while natural gas produces 56.25% of the carbon coal produces: http://www.naturalgas.org/environment/naturalgas.asp )

Most of the continental US gets down right hot for 2-5 months out of the year. So hot that air conditioning accounts for the largest share of commercial and residential electricity usage. This is probably becoming an even bigger factor when you consider there has been a mass migration from more temperate climates of the upper Midwest to areas such as Texas, Florida and the Southwest. This migration began in the mid 20th century with the advent of reliable central air conditioning.

My question is are Americans consuming more electricity than the average German because of environmental factors or because we're really guzzling power like gasoline in the 1960s and 70s?

> Superior energy efficiency can be designed into new construction (or retrofitted to existing buildings). Since the U.S. Department of Energy was created in 1977, their Weatherization Assistance Program[25] has reduced heating-and-cooling load on 5.5 million low-income affordable homes an average of 31%. A hundred million American buildings still need improved weatherization. Careless conventional construction practices are still producing inefficient new buildings that need weatherization when they are first occupied.

Compare that with German standards for energy efficient buildings.

Make renewable energy by burning regular energy. Mark it up a bit and sell it for 300% of what you paid for the regular energy.

That's basically how biomass energy works anyway. Wind and photovoltaic energy also have a huge amount of regular energy usage hidden in them.

If the electricity really costs so much I'm not really impressed. However any chance that number is taxes?