By Taylor Kuykendall

A new report from a coal advocacy group claims the benefits of fossil fuels "far outweigh" the costs of carbon dioxide emissions, but a leading coal opponent says the report "completely disregards" many of coal's impacts.

"The Social Costs of Carbon? No, the Social Benefits of Carbon" was released Jan. 22 by the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity. The report says fossil fuels have been the lead driver of increased global energy availability and links that to a doubling of the average global life expectancy and rising incomes over the past 250 years.

In a news release accompanying the report, ACCCE President and CEO Mike Duncan said it is imperative that policymakers consider the benefits of a carbon-based economy.

"It is without question or debate that our national and global societies have benefited from fossil fuels," Duncan said. "And those benefits will continue to be realized from coast to coast and around the globe for generations to come."

Mary Anne Hitt, director of the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign, countered that the ACCCE report inappropriately conflates the benefits of electricity and the notion that coal must be the source of that electricity.

"Many, if not most, of the benefits in the report — including job production, economic growth, a lower long-term cost of energy and technological innovation — are all in fact more achievable with a smart mix of clean energy solutions that aren't linked to volatile markets and, more importantly, don't harm public health," Hitt said.

Hitt said Americans are already paying the price of a changing climate in the form of global weather disasters.

"The costs of climate change will only increase going forward, and the world's poorest will be hardest hit," Hitt said. "That's real human harm facilitated by an industry that, with this report, is asking you to look the other way."

Duncan said the U.S. EPA's efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions ignore the billions of dollars the industry has invested to produce electricity from coal with decreased emissions.

"Fossil fuels have provided the energy to improve farming yields, grow manufacturing and business, and are now powering data servers and even [cloud computing services]," Duncan said. "And while we have all benefited from reliable, clean coal electricity, there are still those who seek to end this American form of power."

The report takes direct aim at the social cost of carbon, a figure calculated by an interagency group coordinated by the Office of Management and Budget to determine the cost of carbon dioxide emissions. The figure ranges in value from $11 to $97 per metric ton of carbon dioxide emitted.

Roger Bezdek, the founder and president of Management Information Services, was the lead author of the ACCCE study. He wrote that the societal benefits of carbon could be as high as 500 times the cost.

"Even the most conservative estimates peg the social benefit of carbon-based fuels as 50 times greater than its supposed social cost," Bezdek said. "And the benefits are actual fact; founded on more than two centuries of empirical data, not theoretical summaries based on questionable assumptions, dubious forecasts, and flawed models."

Hitt said the ACCCE report also "completely disregards" the costs that Americans pay for pollution associated with coal before it even gets to the power plant.

"Coal pollution is responsible for 13,000 premature deaths and $100 billion in health care costs in the U.S. alone every year," Hitt countered. "The recent spill of a coal processing chemical just ruined the water supply for 300,000 people in West Virginia. From lost work days, to kids suffering from asthma and missing school, to businesses that can't open due to polluted water, Americans are paying the price of coal pollution every day — and this report completely ignores those costs."