Quote:
Originally Posted by MetroMPG
It's a good question. One reason I can think of: when you say "invest", how can you be sure your money is going to go to expanded renewable capacity? That's one thing Bullfrog promises: the money buys generation directly.
Your question is similar to carbon offsets: why buy those when you could just spend your "offset/guilt" money on, say, home efficiency improvements.
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I was thinking about it and that's actually what I've already done. Every time I go to my mother's place, she's got a short list of maintenance items she needs done. This past summer, one of the things I did was replace a lightbulb in in her kitchen. I actually replaced all three 60W incandescents with 3 * 13W CFLs. The bulbs should last about 10000h so I've prevented about 1400KWh of electricity from being generated - for a 5 dollar investment.
If the average household uses 800 - 1000 KWh per month, subscribing to Bullfrog would cost $18 - $20 per month. I think it's safe to say I would have a larger positive impact on the environment if I took that same amount of money and purchased three 4-packs of CFLs each month. I wouldn't use them, I would just drop them in my neighbour's mailboxes. They'll be used eventually, nobody throws out free lightbulbs.