Grist: A clever new study [PDF] from the World Future Council attempts to do something I haven`t seen before: quantify the cost of not using renewables.
The idea is pretty simple. When we use finite fossil fuels to generate energy, rather than the inexhaustible, renewable alternatives, we make those fossil fuels unavailable for non-energetic uses (think petrochemicals) in the future. In other words, when we burn fossil fuels for energy, we are needlessly destroying valuable industrial capital stock....