Burning coal to generate electricity in the U.S. causes about $62 billion a year in ‘hidden costs’ for environmental damage, not including expenses related to global warming, the National Academy of Sciences said. The cost was part of $120 billion the group identified as total damages from the use of energy in 2005, according to a report the academy’s National Research Council issued today. The study was requested by Congress as part of 2005 energy legislation. The academy was asked to define and evaluate external expenses and benefits associated with production, distribution and use of energy not already reflected in market prices. The report doesn’t include specific costs for damage associated with greenhouse-gas emissions. Congress is debating legislation to limit carbon dioxide and other pollutants in the effort to curb such global warming. ‘Although large uncertainties are associated with the committee’s estimates, there is little doubt that this aggregate total substantially underestimates the damages,’ according to the report by a committee led by Jared Cohon, president of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Damages associated with the normal operation of nuclear power plants ‘are quite low compared with those of fossil-fuel- based power plants, the report found. […]