It's amazing to hear that nearly two billion citizens across the globe could create a rising amount of poor health due to the rise of "dirty energy."

Dirty energy can come in the form of air pollution and exposure to smoke from open fires, among many other things. In other words, the burning of coal to power electric grids is generally not all that healthy to live near (or breathe, of course).

A recent report in the medical journal The Lancet stated that 2.4 billion people worldwide were exposed to pollution from inefficient burning of solid fuels like wood, coal and dried cow dung.

So, in the march to get that energy into the electric grid or for heating, the inefficiency of many methods in several countries could cause escalating problems with the health of nearby citizens.