Citizens Pony Up for Green Energy
 

"MINNEAPOLIS -- The Rev. Francis Galles lives on a retired priest's income, but he doesn't mind paying an extra 60 bucks a year to make sure some of the energy he uses comes from the wind turbines churning across southern Minnesota. "It's not much. I'd pay more," he said.

Galles is part of a small but growing group of consumers who, despite an era of high energy costs, are willing to pay a premium to support renewable energy...."

http://www.wired.com/news/wireservic...l?tw=rss.index

So where you live, is there much in the way of renewable sources? Would you be willing to pay more for it? Or are you paying an arm and a leg for it already?

Apparently it use to be fairly cheap in Maine, till the nuke plant got closed...and there's a fair bit of renewable sources that get thrown into the mix....wouldn't have a clue in Mass though....Would I pay extra for it, well probably not because renewable sources aren't really that much more environmentally friendly once you get behind the gloss, but it's still a good idea :)

Re: Citizens Pony Up for Green Energy
 

We had the Clean Air Council round this week doorstepping, trying to sell Wind Power. For an extra cost, $11 a month I think, you could purchase a percentage of your electricity generated by wind power. Who knew NJ had Wind Turbines???

Re: Citizens Pony Up for Green Energy
 

certainly a lot of windbags though :D

Re: Citizens Pony Up for Green Energy
 

Nice idea, I'm all for a bit of tree hugging and whale loving, but with my bill having jumped from $400 4 years ago to $600 now (in July/August), I really cannot see me giving another cent to the energy companies.

So why the increase?

Electricity was 8.8c/KWH in 2003, it is now 13.5c/KWH. I haven't increased my consumption any more than in 2003, in fact it went down when I added solar screens. It is just the electricity companies lifting our legs.

It's like the recycle bins, we tried it for a few months, but it was another $12 per month, and the kerbside operatives kept leaving stuff in the bin as they said it wasn't recyclable, even when it had recycle marks and was the right sort of plastic, grr.

Re: Citizens Pony Up for Green Energy
 

North East PA is covered in giant windmills, they look like something out of a super-sized Teletubbies.

In states like Cali, Texas, Arizona (all the hot ones) theres no reason why peoples roofs aren't all covered in solar panels. Seems stoopid to pony up cash for energy when you've got plenty coming at you for free from the sky.

Re: Citizens Pony Up for Green Energy
 

That's what I don't understand Sarah...why don't more homes have solar panels? Even in the NE we get a terffic amount of sunlight. A small development near where we lived in the UK had solar panels on the roof...they provided the occupants with hot water for many months of the year.

Re: Citizens Pony Up for Green Energy
 

I was recently reading about a guy in California who wanted to go "off the grid" which is nearly impossible now, but he built his own house in an environmentally friendly way using haybales between the walls :eek: (not sure how it works but they are insulating, never rot and you don't get any animals living between your walls) and he covered his roof in solar panels. At the end of it all, because he was producing so much energy from his eco-friendly home, the electricity co. ended up paying him money because of all the energy he was putting back into the grid!!

Re: Citizens Pony Up for Green Energy
 

I can understand that hay would be insulating, but I would have thought it to be a fire risk and also harbor loads of bugs and vermin.

Re: Citizens Pony Up for Green Energy
 

Straw bale construction

:)

Re: Citizens Pony Up for Green Energy
 

Thanks Gruff. Friends in England have been renovating a listed cottage. The walls, which were about 2ft thick, were made out of mud and straw.

PS Maybe you could get yourself another username and go incognito during working hours....Gruffwhite or Thewidowshusband perhaps. :)

Re: Citizens Pony Up for Green Energy
 

We opted to use Green Mountain Energy as our supplier when CT opened up its electricity market. We paid a bit more per kWh, but decided it was a good thing to do.
A couple of years later, we got a letter saying that they were withdrawing from the state and we'd be automatically reverted back to CL&P (the main state supplier). Seems only a few hundred people in the state chose to use them, which wasn't economic for them - really rather sad. Think they still have a presence in other states, but if they can't make it work in "progressive New England", make me wonder about the business model.
So I'm back to using a utility that uses a typical oil/nuke/hydro mix.

Re: Citizens Pony Up for Green Energy
 

NYC stopped collecting recycling a while ago because it wasn't economical.

Re: Citizens Pony Up for Green Energy
 

We pay extra each month for renewable energy - we've always done it since we moved here so we don't notice the price difference. I checked our last bill and it was $8 extra.

I don't have any idea how it works in terms of allocating the renewable and non-renewable energy. I assume they just add up all those paying extra and make sure they produce that much renewable overall.

We've talked about getting solar panels but we don't intend to live in this house much longer. Once we're in a home we plan to stay in for a long time I'm sure we'll look into it more seriously.

Re: Citizens Pony Up for Green Energy
 

Solars something I've thought about a few times, especially now where we're paying to fit solar screens etc to keep the sun out - why not take advantage of it! So last night, spurred on by this thread, I had another (brief) look at it.

If you go on the BP website and follow the links down the solar channel, you get to a calculator - pretty rough and ready but its supposed to give you a rough idea of the ballpark you'll be in to retrofit solar heating to your existing house. Apparently it'll cost us around 55k!!! :eek: But it'll save us $900 a year (not sure how they calculate that, as it appeared to be an estimate for a selfsufficent whole-house system... even talked about returning suprlus to the grid! But on that basis the 55k system only covers about half our requirements..........). Maybe next year.... :rolleyes:

Re: Citizens Pony Up for Green Energy
 

Problem with solar panels is that they are very expensive (partly due to the cost of materials, and partly to competing interests for those materials), they have a low efficiency (so you need more of them), and they currently have a ~25 year life span. I'd smother my whole house in them if I could afford it.