why paying more for green power?

Why paying more for green electricity, when we are in hard times and feeling squeezed from every direction?

It may be really difficult to ask people in a tight financial situation to buy green power (involving some cents more per kW - an average of 2 cents, in USA). But there are good environmental reasons for it. And if you are an eco-conscious person, you may want to consider buying green power.

Electricity isn’t a clean source of energy

The obvious answer to the question of why we should prefer green power has to do with the origin of most of our electricity. In fact, most electricity comes from burning fossil fuels: coal, oil and gas. And that means… global warming and pollution.

Global warming

The generation of electricity is the main cause of global warming. Burning coal, gas, and oil to generate power involves billions of tones of CO2 and other polluting gases every year.

The seemingly clean electricity is in fact a very dirt source of energy, unless it comes from renewable sources…

Green electricity involves electricity produced from renewable sources - solar, wind, waves, biomass, geothermal, hydro… - that do not cause significant negative impacts on the environment.

International situation

The worlwide situation isn't very different from those of countries like USA or England. Nuclear accounts for around 25%-30% of the power production, renewable (green power) accounts for around 5-10%, and fossil fuel electricity accounts for the remaining.

There are some few exceptions, with some significance: in some Canadian regions the hydropower is dominant (more than 75% in Quebec or British Columbia), in Denmark the wind power represents around 20%, in France the electricity from nuclear accounts for more than 75% of the French electric needs... But on the whole, these exceptions do not mean much for global warming.

How to know the source of power

There are, in some cases and countries, the possibility of knowing the sources of energy we are using.

In USA you may use the EPA Power Profiler. Indicate your ZIP code and the name of your utility company, and you will get the categories of the energy sources – wind, solar, hydro and other renewable sources, nuclear, coal, oil, gas – and their relative importance.