Good Idea – Bad Idea
I keep hearing these advertisements on the radio for Green Power. Apparently, TVA now offers people the alternative to switch from what is probably nasty coal-fired power to green power, which in the commercial they only list solar but I’d assume they have wind and others. The issue that I have with it is that they want to charge you more for it than regular old, nasty coal-fired power. I’m guessing not a whole lot of people have signed up for it.
Also, it seems to me that those green power sources are already in place. Why not use them? Or are they building windmills on request or something.
October 12th, 2005 at 10:28 am
Doesn’t the TVA have a bunch of dams and such?
Or is my memory of their infrustructure flawed?
October 12th, 2005 at 12:41 pm
It’s all a big scam. And just how, exactly, are you supposed to get “green” electricity while your next door neighbor gets the dirty stuff? What, they put a “clean electrons only” filter out at the pole for your house?
No, what this always seems to involve is tax credits. In a former residence we had the option of choosing to go with a green energy provider. The only differences were that we would pay a different company and our electric bill would be higher. The old electricity company still did all the maintenance and even the meter reading. Oh, and one other not-so-minor difference…. we would get a tax incentive that would actually make our net electricity cost a small percentage lower than it was before. It turns out that the supposedly green electricity provider only had the capacity to produce something like a tenth of what they were selling, but that’s okay because they had *plans* to generate more clean power over the decades so everyone still got the tax break.
That was the big push- you pay a little less for electricity and the green company got more of the “green”, courtesy of the government. Of course, we all know where the gov gets their money, but most of the simpletons out there don’t really grasp that. As long as they get theirs…..
October 12th, 2005 at 3:29 pm
Great googly-moogly! You are just now hearing about Green Power? The program has been around for years and has many subscribers, including municipalities, state parks, and businesses you probably patronize. The extra money is used to fund investment in renewable power sources, including wind, methane from landfills, and more. Participation obligates TVA to generate as much renewable power as they have subscribers.
Obviously there is no guarantee that the green energy added to their power grid only finds its way to the homes and businesses of subscribers.
October 12th, 2005 at 3:30 pm
I’d heard about it before but never in the way presented on the radio.
October 12th, 2005 at 9:18 pm
I call shenanigans!
October 13th, 2005 at 1:53 pm
Electrons are electrons. THere’s no difference between them whether they came from a coal, nuclear (Hoorayy!), solar, wind, or water power[1]. When you buy any kind of power, part of your payment goes to the power generator company and the rest to the company that maintains the lines, etc. With “green power”, a slightly higher payment goes to an allegedly green power generator company – but all the generators are putting the power into the same pool, and you’re getting whatever came down the wires. I can 100% assure you that the power you receive after dark isn’t of direct solar origin[2] – but perhaps solar power during the daytime is being swapped for coal power at night.
[1] Is water power “green”? It is certainly renewable, but dams are the most environmentally damaging thing humans invented between slash-and-burn agriculture and the H-bomb.
[2] All power is solar power. Coal is derived from solar power that grew forests 100 million years ago or so. Water and wind power also derive from heating of the Earth by the sun. Uranium isn’t a product of our sun, but it was produced in a star and released when that star went supernova. If we ever get fusion power working, it will probably use elements like deuterium, tritium, and lithium, which were also produced in long-dead stars, rather than the same fuel the stars burn (regular hydrogen).
October 13th, 2005 at 5:32 pm
markm:
[1] Humans didn’t invent dams. Beavers did. 🙂
[2] Glad you used the word “direct,” because a lot of solar-powered homes have battery backup. The sun charges the batteries during the day and the battery powers the lights (and whatnot) at night. They’re getting better at it, to the point where if your home is in the right area and properly insulated, and you use the appropriate energy-efficient appliances, you only need grid power for your HVAC. Take away some of those “ifs” and you increase your reliance on grid power, but you’re still measurably less reliant than people who are totally reliant on grid power.
October 13th, 2005 at 7:01 pm
I don’t understand the current hate towards dams, do fish ladders not work properly? I know for sure that the migratory fish around here can get above Great Falls, Potomac, Maryland, so what’s the deal?
My modest proposal is that for every dam that gets blown up, we get one new pebble bed reactor.
(“I just got one question, is this a god damn?”)