Sunday, May 07, 2006

Tilting at windmills

I've put off signing up for the "Clean Energy" option on my electric bill forever. It was never obvious how to go about it, and the bill-paying time of the month is when I least have time to research something. Excuses, excuses!

Anyway, they mailed a sign-up form with my bill this time, which makes it too easy to avoid anymore. There were two choices; I'm going with NewWind Energy. I thought it would be hyper-expensive, but it doesn't seem like it will cost a whole lot more; it'll probably be less than $5/month extra for me. I can live with that.

NewWind supposedly provides 50% of their energy from wind, and 50% from "landfill gas," according to the info that came with my electricity bill. Their web site has precious little info, though.

I'm not gung-ho about windmills; apparently they cause bird deaths. But there is disagreement about how bad the problem actually is (say, in comparison to bird deaths due to collisions with vehicles, habitat loss, and so on).

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