It almost felt like an American consumer holiday recently. All the media around me was awash in stories regarding the reasons we should buy green products. Earth Day is the new Christmas. Remember, however, environmentally sound decisions are first based on REDUCTION, then REUSE and then only finally RECYLE. A green window cleaner still is being put into a plastic bottle. A touch of vinegar in a small bucket of water will work just as well and is not harmful to the environment. You can buy white vinegar for pennies on the dollar, a pretty good size savings from the eco-friendly window cleaner. I hope you enjoyed Earth Day and now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

As the title of the post states, our local power company offered to provide our electricity to us through a greenpower program. By choosing GREENPOWER the pamphlet said, “you can assign 100% of your electric load to a new renewable resource projects. To cover all of your energy use with Greenpower, you will simply pay a 1-cent per kilowatt-hour premium above the normal rate.” This appears to be straightforward and simple.

I pulled out the last 12-months of electric bills and calculated our use and potential additional cost.

Total kWh used in 24 months : 23,346
Total cost of a $0.01 premium for Greenpower : $233.46
Average kWh per month : 933.34
Average estimated monthly increase in our electric bill to pay the premium : $9.34

We agreed that paying $9.34 a month to support our local electric company's continued investment in renewable power generation projects was worth the cost. Susan did shoot an email off to our electric company inquiring about their policy to guarantee that our premium would go directly to new renewable energy technologies. This program is an expansion of the their windpower program, so we feel comfortable that the Eugene Water and Electric Board will utilize our funds appropriately.