Today we watched An Inconvenient Truth for the first time. I actually bought the used DVD from Netflix last month for a few bucks, but just now got around to watching it. We are now, officially, on 100% renewable power. I signed us up for the PGE Renewable Future plan. This means our power bills will be slightly more, as our power will be coming from the semi-local Klondike II wind farm, but our power usage will be entirely from renewable resources. This also means that our power rate will be fixed until 2012. In theory, as fossil fuels become more scarce and prices rise for everyone else, ours will stay fixed. In practice, I guess we will see how that works out.
In related news, my web host (Dreamhost) is now carbon-neutral:
We’ve calculated the impact of everything that DreamHost uses and leaves behind in the course of our daily work. All of the resources that we use — paper in the office, electricity for our servers, even the gas in our cars that bring us to the office — leaves behind some kind of soul-sucking residue in the world.
When we learned that running DreamHost generated as much carbon dioxide as 545 average-size homes we realized we had to do something.…
It only took us three days to go from “Hey let’s do this” status to “Hey it’s done!” status. Three days and several thousand dollars, but that’s another story. You don’t have to be a tree-hugger to appreciate the value of renewable energy and you don’t have to charge a premium for your services to afford it, either.
More information is available at their blog post on the matter.
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Ah nice! I wish I had that option. Our energy provider was one of the last in the state to even recognize net metering so I doubt they’re looking into producing their own renewable energy any time soon. Back in ’99 they said this —
“NIPSCO customers have also expressed this interest and we are working diligently to offer our customers a “Green” choice from NIPSCO in the near future,” said Don Babcock, director of product line management. “The introduction of wood as a fuel source is the most cost-effective way to provide these environmental benefits because it utilizes existing generation equipment,” added Babcock.
Their green solution is wood!
My emails have gone unanswered on the matter. If they do have any type of green energy, they sure don’t advertise it so that the customers know about it. Maybe it’s time to pay them a visit?