Coal is no good for Maryland

Thanks, miners, but your work is done

Thank you, coal miners. At great cost to your own health and safety, you went deep into the earth to mine the fuel that powered homes and industries and helped build the America we know today. But now we know that burning coal is harmful to both our health and our climate. So I agree with Dan Rodricks that we have to transition quickly to less damaging sources of energy (“The nation’s goodbye to coal is taking too long. Why is Maryland still mining for it?” Oct. 1).

There’s a simple way to accelerate that process: Charge the companies that extract coal, oil and natural gas a steadily rising price on the carbon dioxide released per unit energy produced. That’s what a carbon tax does.

Because coal is the least efficient burning fossil fuel, it would quickly become very expensive. Utilities would be motivated to shut down coal-fired power plants because they were losing money on them. Soon, oil and gas-fired power plants would also become too expensive to operate, incentivizing utilities to switch to cheaper energy sources like solar and wind.

What should the government do with the revenue produced from that carbon tax? I’ll bet most people would be very happy to have it rebated to them as a monthly check to spend as they wish. The U.S. House of Representatives is already considering this in the Energy Innovation and Carbon dividend Act. This could be the kind of tax people could warm to.