The Price of Green Power

Is apparently lower than regular power.

You'll remember earlier this year when I implored Puppeteers to consider switching to green power for only $16 a month, and mentioned that PSE gave me coupons to buy CFL bulbs to replace the regular bulbs in our house. That was a follow-up to previous posts about my switch to green power. I spent those coupons and about $40 more on switching to green power, and since I just got my PSE bill for the last month I wanted to note a trend.

For the fifth month in a row, my power bill has been below $100. Last summer - I just checked and did the math - my average bill was $114.59. Since, if anything, I've been running the Xbox 360 more this summer than last, I can't help but think those CFL bulbs had something to do with the savings.

PSE told me my bill would be about $15 more a month, but instead it's dropped by about $16 a month. When compared to last summer's power bills, I've already saved the cost of the CFL bulbs and from here on out the savings are just money in the bank. Or, it offsets and even one-ups the cost of "going green."

Rethinking the whole green power thing? Yeah, I would too.

So what have you done lately?

The Cost of Going Green

I just called PSE, our local energy provider, and switched entirely to green power. Green power comes from sources like wind plants and hydro plants (of which there are plenty in Washington state) rather than coal/oil burning plants.

I made the switch because after watching An Inconvenient Truth and reading comments on this blog and others, it really is up to us to get off our asses and do something about it. This problem isn't going to fix itself, and the only ones we can blame for not taking action are ourselves.

The PSE person explained to me that they can't control exactly where the power comes from on the grid that flows into my house, but that I would be feeding the proper amount of green power into the grid. Of course, if everyone on PSE did this, the entire grid would be green. So I realize that while my power might come from some rootin', tootin,' pollutin' source (and likely will until I install my own solar panels and windmills), someone else somewhere is getting green power.

The total cost of my power bill will go up by all of $16 a month, on average. That's far less than the money we saved by properly insulating our attic this year, and it's a price I'm willing to pay.

So what have you done lately?

What Have YOU Done?

I wanted to share with my readers the letter I sent to the Federal Way school board, the fine folks who decided that pseudoscience and science were the same:

Greetings again members of the Federal Way School Board,

This last week, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a report stating that humans are "very likely" the cause of global warming - you can read about it here: http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/02/02/climate.change.report/index.html. These scientists used terms like "It's unequivocal" and "90 percent certainty." As the news article to which I linked states, even President Bush himself addressed climate change in his recent State of the Union speech.

More scientific evidence. Almost unilateral support from both sides of the political spectrum. Perhaps it is time you recognized that you made a grevious misake by capitulating to the pseudoscience of a religious extremist rather than a decision grounded in scientific research and fact. Please do not continue to do your children a disservice by pretending that there is an "opposing point of view." Simply put: there isn't. Frosty was given a venue at which to share his ideas of not only global warming, but creationism and lack of birth control education. Good for him. Let's admit our mistakes and move on.

I look forward to reading in the Times that you have admitted you were wrong and reversed your previous decision.

So what have you done?