faupauxs |
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I was curious about the stats on our local energy use and here is what I found for Klickitat County. I’ll look up Hood River, Skamania and other local counties too.
*Should we calculate our ‘green’ electricity useage the same as fossil fuel useage?
The reason I ask this is that if we all take an equal share regardless of the source it will help even more.
From KPUD website:
Current electricity use by residential customers is 100% hydroelectric.
McNary Dam produces 12% of our total electricity,
Bonneville Power Administration (Federally run hydroelectric dams)provide the remainder.
The regions largest landfill is right here in Klickitat County and the methane that is produced by the decomposition of it’s (currently) 12 million tons of waste is used to produce electricity. It will produce 20 MegaWatts of electricity by 2008 and also prevents the destructive methane gasses from polluting our atmosphere. The electricity produced by this plant is sold out to neighboring counties in Washington and to the Aluminum plant in Goldendale.
The White Creek wind project to be completed later this year will produce a total of 610,572 MW/h and KPUD will get a 26% share of this very green electricity.
100% green electricity! you can’t really ask for more now can you?
Actually we should ask for more… from ourselves. The average person in the United States according to the EPA produces between 25 and 40 thousand pounds of co2 per year! The sustainable limit according to the IPCC is 5,511 pounds – a difference of about 30 thousand! Check out the Carbon Challenge at the COIN website and see how other people are doing it.