Green Weenies

[fleming442]

I just saw an Amazon commercial saying how they're going to be carbon neutral by 2040, they only use "clean" energy, blah, blah, blah. Other large corporations have been touting the same crap for years. So, riddle me this: I live between 2 other neighbors for a total of 3 households. Let's say 2 decide to go "green", not off the grid, but paying a company that claims to get their electrons from a "renewable" source. 1 goes wind, and one goes solar, but I stay with good ol' coal. The same 3 freaking wires feed all 3 houses, so how the hell does making a donation to a "clean" company do a damn bit of good when the same 3 wires go back to the coal fired power plant? I understand you can supplement the grid with your own clean source by having your own solar or wind power and that works. but how can you claim to be green by making a donation?

 

[motorheadmike]

This isn't to a appease or make sense to you or I in a rural setting. It is to take advantage of the simple masses stuffed into high-rise buildings in metropolitan cities - where Amazon's largest customer base is. The same ones who clamour for environmental change yet they provide no defined plan on what it is they are changing/gaining by going from X to Y. Just that Y sounds better and addresses their "guilt".

Everything we have takes energy to refine, build, store, delivery, and dispose of.

The pandemic and "protests" must be over if we are back to pollution.

 

[GP403]

lost me at the donation part, what?

 

[xcookpac]

You may want to take a look at the following documentary:

Yes, Michael Moore produced the documentary and much of documentary's observations are exaggerated and overwrought*. But, the documentary concludes that solar power and wind power have been oversold as solutions. I think that you would get a kick out of this documentary.

*- in much of Moore's prior work he uses the similar types of exaggerations to make a point.

 

[pontiacgp]

so that means they would have to tear down and rebuild houses and buildings that are putting out gases 24/7 and rebuild them "green" .........

 

[fleming442]

lost me at the donation part, what?

i refer to it as a donation because you aren't paying for anything tangible. You are making a donation to a cause, which may or may not provide support for the tangible goods (clean energy).

MHM, the pandemic and protests are still there. This was just a "things that make you go hmmm" moment.

 

[GP403]

i refer to it as a donation because you aren't paying for anything tangible. You are making a donation to a cause, which may or may not provide support for the tangible goods (clean energy).

so that means they would have to tear down and rebuild houses and buildings that are putting out gases 24/7 and rebuild them the "green" method.

both of these...

 

[motorheadmike]

MHM, the pandemic and protests are still there. This was just a "things that make you go hmmm" moment.

Believe it or not I feel that pollution is a far bigger concern than the other two.

 

[UC645]

Believe it or not I feel that pollution is a far bigger concern than the other two.

One look at a what I local city’s within city limits power plant does to white awnings in a year is enough to give me cause for alarm.

While renewable energy is pushed super hard, it’s hardly for a intangible cause.
With your example of 3 households, of those 2 green-not-off-grid households cut down their power consumption by lets say, 50%, the power plant that supplied those houses power can now supply another house on top of the 3 it already provided for.
In small scale it’s tit for tat, but it’s when you start multiplying those numbers that the benefit becomes tangible.

God that sounded like trash.

 

[fleming442]

With your example of 3 households, of those 2 green-not-off-grid households cut down their power consumption by lets say, 50%, the power plant that supplied those houses power can now supply another house on top of the 3 it already provided for.
In small scale it’s tit for tat, but it’s when you start multiplying those numbers that the benefit becomes tangible.

Yeah, that was the last point I made about supplemental systems where you own solar panels or a windmill and pump some back into the grid. My main point was about deregulation and the ability to donate money to a different provider than the power company serving your neighborhood that owns the plant it is hooked to. Telecom was deregulated, but you have "your own" 2 wires going to your house, a dedicated circuit. The hidden part of that is your LEC being a last mile carrier. No matter who you're getting your service from, the local exchange carrier has to maintain it. In effect, all you are doing is adding a step to your repair- you report a problem, your carrier comes out, then they refer it back to the LEC. So, you have to wait when it could have been fixed on the first repair with the LEC. Instead, you introduced a 3rd party and delayed yourself. Power and CATV doesn't work that way. You have a grid or trunk feeding an entire area.