Find out how your home electricity is generated. It turns out mine is 51% coal, 40% nuclear, and supposedly 2% clean power. Powering my home in the past year has generated 39lbs of nitrogen oxides, 12 pounds of sulfur dioxide and 23,669 pounds of CO2. Ugh. Our current home’s energy usage is a bad scene, but we’re doing what we can.
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It seems a little funny that multiple zip codes I entered in geographically disparate parts of the Commonwealth all yielded the same information as you provided in the post.
JS: That’s because the Power Profiler looks at the distribution grid not the individual utility. So if you live east of about Lexington your crib is swapping sparks with the rest of Dominion Power’s system – including the many co-ops that wholesale Dom’s electricity.
This is why Dominion wants more wiring across the northern Shen to the coal plants of West Virginia, in addition to their nuke on Lake Anna. They want to distribute more coal juice to NOVA and Central Virginia.
Look at the mix for 24060 (Blacksburg) where APCO is the distributing grid – 73% coal.
Raleigh, NC also has the exact proportions that Waldo listed.
Down here we’re supplied by AEP (Appalachian Electric Power-?). Sure they’re probably not the best regarding Pollution. But My average electric bill is cheaper than with Dominion Power. *And* every time there is a nasty thunderstorm the likes of which usually guarantee’s power outages in Cville (or snow and Ice now that we’re heading into that season) I don’t have to worry about losing power for 3 days. Those are both trade off’s I can live with.
Try Zip Code 11787. It’s Smithtown, NY. You can see huge differences there. There’s is all oil and gas.
Nuclear isn’t “clean” in your book? How, exactly, do you define “clean power” for this exercise?
Thanks for passing on that link. I think awareness has to be the primary driver in making change. I really wish I could afford to put solar cells on my roof.
PS: Like the smilie in the lower left….
Clean power is that power which, in the process of generating it, creates no harmful byproducts. Though nuclear is clearly the cleanest of major power sources, the ongoing debate about where to store its incredibly deadly waste makes clear that it’s far from clean.