Have Fun
Windstuff Ed

You're witnessing one of the good effects of deregulation.  Your power distribution company doesn't get paid for production, only distribution.  Since RE usually takes more distribution (gotta take the power from where it is, to where you want it), if people are willing to pay a bit more, then they win, and RE wins.

On the other hand, at least they are aware that there is an environment and that people might care what they do to it.  So I guess that's progress.  And once they take a stand, it's fun to start asking them technical questions in public forums and watch them squirm around.  Once the general population gets a little savy about what environmentally responsible energy production and use actually looks like, the companies will get lots of good questions.

Good luck and have fun.

troy

ps, hope your fundraising efforts go well, as I trust you to do a better job with the money than the utility co.

sorry couldn't help it

First if the wind or sun is producing the power then it's free to them except for the equipment. Compare that to burning a ton of coal everyday or gas or other methodes to produce the electric where they have to pay for the fuel. And all those other methodes have to be built also, so they cost more than just the fuel they burn!!

As for where it's located another bull! We saw how close the grid is to home when half the north east US lost power a year or two ago! I do not live up that way and was not effected by that myself and forgot excatly which states it was.
What was that, Canada, WI, Ill, Ind, Ohio, Ny, ect... all on the same grid network that went down. Now you mean it costs more to put up RE in those areas and pipe it to some-ones house?? They are already piping it 1,000s of miles on the grid. One big circle,  One bad switch and it all goes down to prove it, and they did flip that switch!!
 So they can use that same grid to pipe any RE energy also at no extra costs other than connecting it. So that's no more cost than connecting another coal fired plant!

 It's all just a scam, just like donating a car to most charities that ask for them and offer you a tax receipt! Another SCAM!! Most do not repair or sell the cars or use them for any purpose like training people for skills. NO, they sell them off to polution producing companies that can then produce MORE polution LEGALLY!!
 Yes, that's a little known fact that is true!!
 If a large corperation is producing too much polution and is required to install expensive equipment to cut the polution or face heavy fines they can get POLUTION CREDITS by buying cars and destroying them! It's figured over so many years that car would have produced so much polution so by destroying the car the polution was not created so the CORP can create it instead!!
So YA, some charity collects 200 junks cars that were sitting unused creating no polution and sells those cars to a Power plant which destroys them as needed for polution credits, then they produce the polution those 200 cars would have produced if they had actually been being used. They are not required to clean up their act at all untill they are creating more polution than they can get in credits.

 Talk about a SCAM on the public!! And most people donating cars think they are doing something worthwhile like helping people learn skills like autorepair and then the cars are sold for a decent price which then helps the charity with needed money.
 Ask direct questions about it and either get NO answers or LIES about what is being done with the cars most the time also!!

 I am not certain but I "THINK" that's what the famous BOY HOME/FARM/ or whatever it was called up there in WI was doing when I lived there. They were advertising donate your cars for tax credits and help them out type of thing. Well I had a nice collecter car that needed just a little work, I thought about donateting it to them but when I started asking question the only answer I could get was "Oh we don't fix anything" and no further info. From their advertising it was my understanding the donated cars were being used to teach the boys skills in repairs for a usefull trade/carreer and then sold off as decent cars again. BUT when I asked I was told that was not the case and I could never get ANY answer what was going to be done with my car, so they never got it!!

 Another place I had thought about donating a couple cars to one time when moving cross country was the same thing. Athough they supposedly are famous for helping handicaped/underprivalaged people to learn new skills, they were asking for car donations but do not repair or resell them! Hmmm, then I wonder just what they do with them then, they don't drive them, repair them, or sell them. Obviously they collect them to sell to Polution Corps for polution credits!!! But will they tell you that, no way!!

 So would I pay extra for green power? Hell NO!! Just another scam!!!
Just put the money into making my own, then I got green power and FREE TOO!!
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nothing to lose

Well to answer that and I mean to be nice about it too.
It's when they put on a false pretense and refuse to answer questions that I have a problem with them. If they act as if they are going to teach a person a skill then sell the car for a reasonable amount and use that money to further their goals, I support them DOING THAT, but to act like that is what they are going to do, then scrap the cars for a few bucks or whatever is NOT what I support! Or if they say that is what they are doing honestly and openly with out the false pretense involved then I would support that maybe. Most likely I'd keep the car and give em money instead though.

Many of these older cars ARE NOT creating polution because they are not being used, or they are seldom used. Also when I need parts for my classic hot rods and have to buy new parts, polution is made producing those new parts, so it's a double whammy. Cars not creating polution are destroyed so some Corp CAN produce that polution, and parts for cars are being made new because used parts are not as available. Not that big a problem, but it does exist also. And besides that, how much polution was created making your new car for the lower emisions you have? It's back to the same old thing, is it worthwhile to pay 3 times the money for a car to use half as much gas and then pay high repair bills when it breaks? Sorta the same thing here, your taking a seldom used car and creating polution to destroy it, poplution to build a new one and the polution the new one creates since it will be driven much more often and longer trips, PLUS the CORP gets to mauch all the polution the old car supposedly would have made.

And your kinda contradicting yourself there. MI is right across the lake from WI and you say something about polution blowing in from other areas? Well maybe if the old cars sat unused and the Corps did not get the credits to alough them to produce all that extra polution you would not have to worry about cleaning it up when it blows in!! So no, not everyone wins, you just lost! And did that trade off make sense to you now since your state has to clean it up??

As for the polution, I don't care that much about it, it's not the fact they are aloughed to make it, it's the scam involved to be aloughed that I was talking about.
 Sure I'd like a cleaner place to live too I geuss, but I'm not a nut about it. I know it's a trade off, have life as we know it, or live in a cave in the dark!
I mean even building windmills creates polution! Those parts had to be made somewhere, the inverters, the batteries, ect....

Anyway, what I was saying is I think it's just another scam by the power companies when they want more money for green power and I was using that scam as an example of some of the crap that gets pulled.
 I donate to alot of charities at times and will be founding my own before long if all goes well, but I'll never donate a car unless I am told exactly what is gonna be done with it now. And I would never give a power company a dime more than my bill!!
 Use that money to buy energy effieceint stuff for your house and benefit twice instead! You use less power so save money on your bill, and they can produce less since your not buying it!! That's much better than giving them extra money for nothing on their claim they will use it for green power production. Just think if everyone spent $4 a month for flouresent lights instead of giving it to the power company for nothing! Then each month power comsumtion goes down alittle more as more lights are replaced! In 12 months you replace 12 bulbs and that's 12 bulbs a month saving power for a long long time! Or save up 3 months and buy a $12 light! Far better!!
  My  main reasons for trying to go wind power. Stop paying the electric company at all, and reliable power since this little outfit here has alot of problems.
 It may cost me more in the long run, but look what I save in UPS systems alone! I need one for each computer, TV/vcr/DVd clock, and other stuff. Less polution is nice too, but not much thought on that here really.
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nothing to lose