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Kelly Magill

Want Sustainable Energy? Tell Your Power Company

posted by Kelly Magill Feb 6, 2009 5:44 pm
filed under: Healthy Home, Conservation, , , , , , , ,
Want Sustainable Energy? Tell Your Power Company
13 comments

Telling your electricity company to purchase electricity from sustainable sources instead of coal and nuclear power plants is the single most effective, cost efficient and fastest way to make a difference now. You can do it in about 60 seconds through your electricity company’s website.

Residential energy use accounts for 21 percent of the total energy consumed in the United States. As homeowners, we can make a real difference by choosing to power our homes with sustainable energy (solar, wind and methane). Fortunately, purchasing a wind turbine or solar panels isn’t the only way to make the switch. You simply have to let your utility company know that you want your energy to come from sustainable sources.

In order to meet the energy demands of its customers, utility companies purchase their electricity from the least expensive sources possible, allowing them to keep their costs down and their profits healthy. At the moment, sustainable sources are more expensive to purchase than traditional energy providers who create electricity using coal or nuclear power–so your utility company will not purchase solar, wind or methane generated energy unless you buy it first.

When you sign up for sustainable energy, your utility company then diverts your monthly electricity purchase from traditional suppliers to sustainable ones. As more people switch their electricity purchases to sustainable sources, utility companies will purchase less energy from traditional companies and more energy from sustainable ones. This simple act that truly takes about 60 seconds can have staggering results if enough homeowners make the switch.

For more information or to subscribe at the introductory price of $10 a year, go to positivelygreen.com. Positively Green magazine launched in 2008 as a quarterly women’s magazine that covers every aspect of green from eco-friendly vacations to green fashion to green health. With articles that don’t just explain the problems, they outline solutions for busy people who want to make the change but don’t have the time to research solutions.

More on Conservation (43 articles available)
More from Kelly Magill (23 articles available)

13 comments

13 comments

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13 comments add your comment
Bobby J.

Why aren't all new homes being built with a windmill and solar panels? It would be much cheaper and simpler than overhauling our entire power grid also our power supply (as a whole) would not be as susceptible to natural disasters and terrorist attacks.

Jan C.
  • Jan C. says
  • Feb 9, 2009 6:30 PM

In Northern California, PG&E isn't listening. In fact, they are going in the opposite direction and planning a LNG terminal in Oregon with a pipeline through pristine wilderness to bring it to California.

So Marin County is going to start buying it's own energy through Community Choice Aggregation. Yes!!!!!! We're hoping the East Bay and others will follow suit.

Talking to a corporate owned utility doesn't work. People need to take charge of their own energy sources.

Donna Hudson

We are not connected to a power grid at all, but glad to hear some power companies are looking into ways to decrease the impact on the enviroment, there never will be the perfect fix, all choices will have some flaws, but it has to be better than what we have been doing in our quest for energy.
We make our own home power as does our neighbor.. We both have a wind generator and roof solar panels. Its also a nice bonus we never lose power from storms.

Christie C.

I buy renewable energy credits from Rocky Mountain Power. They are $1.95 per month for each 100 kilowatt-hour block (10 = a normal home's energy use). The company doesn't guarantee that the renewable energy will go to your home, but it does supply renewable energy for use somewhere- I think currently it buys from wind farms in Oregon and distributes the energy locally- I’m in Utah. It also goes toward the development or purchase of renewable energy facilities. They estimate that buying one 100-kwh block each month for a year is as good for the environment as planting nearly 1/2 acre of trees or not driving a car for 2,500 miles. If you're a customer of theirs (I think Pacific Power also does this program), you can find more info at their website, http://www.rockymountainpower.net/Article/Article65531.html

Julia Adkins

I agree cap and trade is a scam and should not be implemented here in the US.

Jay Simms

......and people who live in condos and apartment buildings should do exactly what?

janine k.

Sitting on my sailboat with solar panel energy during blackouts is the best! Free energy for using my noggin!

Erin H.

This is baloney. We're being intentionally misled. Utilities have no way to differentiate power sources within their supply, so there is absolutely no way to tell where "your" power comes from. You'll pay for "green" and still get "brown" energy.

Guys, I was around for the first green energy push in the late '70s (the one Reagan killed), creating first-of-type marketing campaigns for solar and wind equipment makers and also workingn with solar builders. It was then considered increasingly irresponsible in the Southwest to build anything that wasn't at least passive solar -- and the ultimate goal was then to add active equipiment and get off the grid entirely.

Have you noticed how nobody ever talks about that anymore? This is no accident. They want you to keep paying them forever.

Greedy power companies (and Wall Street financiers, who also own power companies) will feed mightily off cap-and-trade, too, if that's passed in the US. They're already spinning more insane derivatives off debt associated with green energy. What we need here is a simple carbon tax, not a new toy for high finance which will cause another bubble that will duly burst and hurt us all. I blogged about this here: http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2008/05/21/carbon-trading-is-just-another-derivatives-scam-by-the-other-katherine-harris/

Study up, Guys. Don't buy more lies.

Debbie P.

my question is where is the energy going to come from if people start driving electric cars? http://www.new.facebook.com/profile.php#/group.php?gid=65156107616

Carla D.

I have been enrolling businesses and residences for renewable energy for the past few years in the NYC area. Contact me and I will assist you with enrollment. I represent Community Energy/Con Ed Solutions. Be a part of the solution!

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