Sunday, October 22, 2006

Earth's Choice

Here in Queensland, the most popular energy provider is Energex. Currently they are running an earth's choice programme, where consumers can choose to buy some (or all) of their energy from renewable sources.

Naturally, energy from renewable sources (solar, wind, hydro etc) costs a little more. But if ordinary people like you and me, are willing to pay this small cost (as little as $10 per quarter) then energex will use the extra money to purchase the energy from alternative sources, rather than from coal-burning.

Apparently, just $10 per quarter can purchase 330kWh of renewable energy. $40 per quarter (for one year) would save the equivalent of one car's emissions for a year. So far this programme has saved over 85,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases - the equivalent of planting 3 million trees, or taking 200,000 cars off the road for a year.

Oh, and in the spirit of fairness, i should also mention that Ergon Energy (sponsor of the Brisbane Broncos) offer a similar programme called Clean Energy.

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