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but, and this is the important part, theyre not controlling where the power that gets into your house is coming from, my original point i didnt make because i explain it to me before i said it. they cant send you special power thats different from everyone else. here's an idea about the farmland thing - write your congressman, a bill that would affect their farming subsidies if they used some of their land for solar power.

No they're not, they're just increasing the amount of power they are purchasing from the "green" suppliers. Of course your power is no different than anyone elses... just a slightly higher % of the total power is sourced from green sources.

spazzychalk wrote:but, and this is the important part, theyre not controlling where the power that gets into your house is comping from. they cant send you special power thats different from everyone else.

That part is irrelevant, really. If you are spending money to help fund the construction and maintenance of solar/wind/tidal/geothermal/etc power plants, then in a way you're doing everybody a favor because now everybody is getting a larger fraction of their power from renewable sources. In a way, you're forcing even evil coal-lovers to get some of their power from renewable sources by funding the creation and maintenance of renewable energy plants and there's nothing they can do to stop it.

AZBrandon wrote:That part is irrelevant, really. If you are spending money to help fund the construction and maintenance of solar/wind/tidal/geothermal/etc power plants, then in a way you're doing everybody a favor because now everybody is getting a larger fraction of their power from renewable sources. In a way, you're forcing even evil coal-lovers to get some of their power from renewable sources by funding the creation and maintenance of renewable energy plants and there's nothing they can do to stop it.

are you serious? evil coal lovers? are you that much of a danm dirty hippy? nobody gives a shit about coal. they care about personal convenience. the only people who care about coal are they people whose jobs are in coal or towns whose economy center on a coal mine. nobody cares where their power comes from, how it works, as long as it does. if they perfer coal its because its cheaper. which still makes them not care about coal, it makes them care about their bottom line and sustaining their current lifestyle. i'd say the loser in this story is you. do you have concept the profit these power companies make? and YOURE paying for them to build the power they can already can afford but know they can get money from suckers like you and then still get all the tax benifits of doing it themselves then turn around and charge everyone more for the new power. you sure showed us... tool

kelliegang wrote:No they're not, they're just increasing the amount of power they are purchasing from the "green" suppliers. Of course your power is no different than anyone elses... just a slightly higher % of the total power is sourced from green sources.

I'd like to believe that's true, but how can you know?

My electric company is under a State Mandate to buy xx% of it's power from green sources. (The value of xx increases periodically.) When people like yourself purchase yy% of the power from green sources, does that mean that they're obligated to purchase (xx+yy)% which would be "fair" or does that mean they just have to purchase MAX(xx,yy) which, in the case where yy<xx, would mean they just earn free money from you.

I'd like to believe that's true, but how can you know

Because it's government audited here in Australia so yes, they have to purchase extra "greenpower" when you request it.

Of course conspiracy theories are fun and creative accounting abounds in the real world.... but you have to rely in good faith on what you can control and assume that an administrative body is doing it's job by properly auditing the power companies to ensure you're money is getting to where it should.


Of course profiteering is going to be involved at the power company and the power supplier both. Unless your power company is nationalised theres nothing to be done about that

nobody cares where their power comes from, how it works, as long as it does

Agreed this is currently the case and theres nothing wrong with people wanting the best price, unfortunately, it's consumers that drive the economy not governments and far too many consumers want to let their goverment fix it for them instead of driving change from the bottom line [don't get your panties in a knot I'm not saying ALL, nor am I ignoring those who simply can't afford it].

The only thing that really disturbs me about the whole process is that when electricity costs go up due to carbon trading/taxation/legislation the cost of my "100%" green energy is going to raise as well...........................

didnt obama say during the election he was going to tax coal into bankrupcy anyway? or was that only new construction? i think its time people got over their china syndrome BS its been 60 years its not going to happen. look at chernobyl, 3 mile island, etc. the people lobbying against nuclear power dont have any legitamte argument left.

back in the 40s people said the bomb would ignite the aptmosphere and explode the world. then when they when they were doing underwater tests they had to come on tv to sat this "The bomb will not start a chain-reaction in the water converting it all to gas and letting all the ships on all the oceans drop down to the bottom. It will not blow out the bottom of the sea and let all the water run down the hole. It will not destroy gravity. I am not an atomic playboy" - Navy Vice Admiral William H. P. Blandy

how are we still there? that level of fear and ignorance. look at our entire navy. not 1 nuclear accident EVER. just clean power forever. these are the same people that tried to make the navy - defending us in this day and age - took them to court last year to make them stop using sonar because of the whales.

kelliegang wrote:you have to rely in good faith on what you can control and assume that an administrative body is doing it's job by properly auditing the power

ummm.... how can i put this..... have you seen the news in the last 6 months?

spazzychalk wrote:ummm.... how can i put this..... have you seen the news in the last 6 months?

How about the last 6 generations? We tend to forget how bad things used to be unless we look up the history.

Generally speaking, I'm not one to believe in conspiracy theories. I do know that there are a lot of honest people in high places and also a lot of corrupt people. My question was simply "How can you know?" and it was mostly rhetorical.

So because there might be some corruption, we do nothing spazzychalk?

no. but never trust. its a classic issue of not needing new laws, just needing actual enforcement of existing laws, in this case regulation and oversight. and i know i know i know a great deal of that regulation caused this but lets concentrate on the oversight part for what im saying. keep the argument simple and general. but as far as the solar panel issue, for god's sake don't feed the pig. they have the money to build it. they get the tax credits for building it. they get renewing tax credits for running it. they charge you more for it, and youre gonna give up your money to do it? really? that's like having money you could donate to charity and going no i think i'll donate it to warren buffet. if you want to do something put your representative in to action. most of american infastructure is antiquated, not just the power system. our cellular technology. our car technology is 2 decades old. ive gone on about it on here. do a search for the term obd2 you'll find it. the same thing is going to happen to our tv system. digital tv is new and shiny now, and the new regulations forced us into it, but in the future it'll be old and out of date and these same regulations will have locked in it, just like with the car computer systems. the answer isnt outright regulation, its more suttle regulation. the carrot and the stick. tax incintives for green and nuclear, severe tax burdens for coal. the market will then freely decide to make the transition. of course its not really free market. it was pushed into a corner by govt. but in a way that leaves it open to keep modern when new things come out, unlike a flat regulation that says you have to do ____. like the way they know they cant outlaw cigarettes. so they tax people until its not worth them smoking any more and keep their tax revenue stream basically break even between the increased rate and the loss, all the while making the sheeple think they decided for themselves.

I would tend to agree with Spazzychalk regarding how power companies purchase and distribute their power. Specifically, it's a purely economic decision, UNLESS the power companies are FORCED by federal or state regulations to purchase power from higher-cost alternative energy sources. If you had to buy gas from a certain higher-priced gas station because your local laws required it, obviously you would. However, absent those local laws, you would very likely drive right past that higher-priced gas station to a more competitively priced gas station, wouldn't you? Nobody wants to be regulated out of business because of unsustainable additional costs caused by those regulations. Power companies answer to their stockholders, who demand efficiency and PROFITABILITY for their investments. "Evil coal-lovers"? If all coal-fired power plants were shut down, the almost 80% of the United States would be dark. Considering the advances made in the ability to burn "clean coal," the concept of "evil coal-lovers" is a mindless and unsubstantiated reference to how dirty coal burned in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, especially in London, England, which used to be black and dismal from the coal smoke pollution. London no longer suffers from this malady. Indeed, many years ago, ecologists noted salmon swimming upstream once again in the Thames River, after an absence of well over one hundred years. Please check your facts first before buying into the emotional "feel-good" created by those who would manipulate you into accepting higher taxes and ever-greater government regulation in the name of "environmentalism." It's an obvious con game to those of us who have done even minimal fact-checking. Let the free market determine pricing and availability of resources, the implementation of new innovations, and the ability of consumers to choose freely. The more we allow government to interject itself into the free market system, the closer we approach the precipice of global market collapse.

It was a tongue-in-cheek reference, the "evil coal-lovers." I'm often amazed that people seem blisfully unaware the US is generating half its power from coal.

If we had only learned our lessons the first few times around the block, this wouldn't be an issue now. For instance, if we had stayed on the path of alternative energies after the Oil Embargo of the early 70s, just think what 35 years of development would have brought us.

Maybe the fight against climate change and fight for clean energy can be our ecomomic stimulus like WWII was for bringing the US fully out of the last depression.

it would be nice, but its just too far away to help the economy now. so we're back to paying people to dig holes and fill them in again just to get money into hands they can spend. personally i dont see the difference between that and bush's checks he sent out other than no trickle down time. at least the roads will get fixed. but i cant say it enough over the years. we americans are dumb lot. trained like dogs from childhood by our baby boomers in lethargy. forget the 70s, we went through this a few years ago when gas hit $3. so people screamed, congress grand standed, gas went down just under 3$, then nobody noticed until it went over 4. do you think after the summer price hikes its going to go down again for winter? youre too busy watching american idol and bachelor. then the voice on tv cries its the big bad oil companies they shouldnt be allowed to make that money when their profit margin is much lower than anything you pay for happily. so someone else on tv plays on your blind flag waiving patriotism and says we need to buy american oil, its the arabs fault, when really companies that use exclusively american oil sell gas at the same price and the saudi oil minister was complaining that the price per barrel was unsubstancitatbly high way before anyone in america was. and oil is only traded in dollars anywhere in the world, the price determined in new york. what we need is regulation of futures and commodities and securities bundle trading. yeah wall st f&*#ed us again. no one wants to hear its our fault. it needs to be the enemy's fault, or the facelss corporation, not thousands of normal people trading stocks. its too hard to wag a finger at. what we need more than anything as americans is someone to tell us what to think so we can go repeat it and sound like we know what we're talking about. but remember our lifelong pavlonian training. it has to be what we already think so it fits nicely in our perceived notion of the world around us. if an idea comes along that challenges our beliefs we have to stick our fingers in our ears. how dare somebody challenge our core belief systems. in 1992 the catholic church forgave gallileo for his non geocentric heresy. let me translate that for you. we forgive you, meaning we are still right and you are still wrong, for saying the earth orbits the sun, but we dont think you should burn in hell for it anymore. so allow me to be the first to forgive all the rest of the country. its like im living that movie idiocracy. its not your fault america, its not that you werent taught to think for yourselves, its that you were taught from birth to not think for yourselves.

oh and since its 330 in the morning maybe my math is wrong, but i dont think there was an american 6 generations ago. i know im being a jerk now. you said 6 cause i said 6. the answer to your question bruce is oversight.