🚀 go-pugleaf

"hot frog" <short@tension.span> wrote in message 
news:47b9907d$0$26343$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au...
> "Peter Webb" <webbfamily@DIESPAMDIEoptusnet.com.au> wrote in message
> news:47b91d9d$0$25392$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au...
>>
>> "hot frog" <short@tension.span> wrote in message
>> news:47b83ec1$0$24086$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au...
>> > Here is a simple, cost-free method most households can use to reduce
> their
>> > CO2 emissions, literally by tonnes.
>> >
>> > Step 1. Replace any incandescent light bulbs in your home, that are 
>> > left
>> > on
>> > for several hours a night, with compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs).
>> >
>>
>> Fine.
>>
>> > Step 2. Use the money you save on electricity to purchase accredited
> green
>> > energy.
>> >
>>
>> Pointless. Buying "green energy" doesn't increase the generation of green
>> energy. It just subsidises the excess capacity that must be produced to
>> reach the government Minimum Renewable Energy Targets (MRETs), and has no
>> effect whatsoever on how power is actually generated.
>
> Retailers are audited to check they haven't counted their GreenPower
> purchases towards their mandatory requirements to purchase renewable 
> energy
> under Mandatory Renewable Energy Target (MRET).
> http://www.greenpower.gov.au/what-accreditation-means.aspx
>

True but irrelevant. Their is an oversupply of "green" energy as industry 
gears up for the next round of MRET targets, and the certificates for the 
excess is all they are selling. They sell the electricity anyway, they are 
just selling the feel-good quality. A couple of years ago, the incremental 
cost with some suppliers was zero - they charged the same for green 
electricity as normal electricity, because electricity is electricity and 
they were just selling (giving away) the feelgood for power being generated 
but surplus to MRET at that time.

Buying "green power" would have no effect on the installed base of 
renewables unless the additional consumer costs matched the additional cost 
of making green power - which is about 4 or 5 times as much as we pay for 
coal power now in NSW.