Why Green Power?

Green power is clean, renewable energy that protects and serves our economy, our environment, our health and our national security.

Since the start of the industrial revolution, fossil fuels, which include coal, oil, and natural gas, have dominated the energy sector. By 2001, these three fossil fuels, along with nuclear energy, made up 81 percent of global electricity generation.

While fossil fuel energy sources may have served our economies well in the past, our continued reliance on fossil fuel based energy increasingly threatens our environment and economy alike. Renewable energy offers environmental, economic and health advantages to fossil fuel generation.

Our Environment

Electric power plants that produce fossil fuel-generated power are the number one stationary source of air pollution in the U.S. Fossil fuel power generation causes acid rain, smog, soot, haze, and mercury poisoning in our rivers and lakes. This pollution degrades our trees, wildlife, rivers, lakes, and agricultural crops.

Fossil fuel energy generation is also a principal cause of global climate change, one of the most serious environmental challenges that humans have ever faced. In 2001, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a group of about 2,000 scientists and economists established by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), issued a report projecting "the globally averaged surface air temperature…to warm 1.4 to 5.8°C by 2100 relative to 1990." An increase in global temperatures by a few degrees may not seem immediately significant, but the consequences of climate change over the next 50 years are profound.

Human Health

Fossil fuel electricity generation is a leading cause of air pollution. Air pollution damages human health, bringing about thousands of cases of asthma, lung disease, and other illnesses. The Environmental Protection Agency recently reported that almost 100 million people in 21 U.S. states breathe unhealthy levels of tiny particles spewed by coal-burning power plants, cars, and factories. In California, particulate pollution causes 3,000 deaths annually, not including 60,000-200,000 cases of respiratory infections in children.

Air pollution hurts our children -- dirty air and particulate matter from coal plants and car pollution contribute to asthma, the number one cause of school absenteeism for kids today. Air pollution impacts 1.5 million children under age 14 in the Baltimore-Washington region alone, including 500,000 asthmatics, and 800,000 people over the age of 65 (Loudon Environmental Indicators program). In the U.S., 60% more people die from air pollution than automobile accidents.

Our Economy

In the U.S., we are as dependent on fossil fuel-generated energy to power our economy as ever before. Due to diminishing supplies and increasingly high demand, electricity prices continue to rise, as does the risk of more blackouts. History has proven that energy price hikes significantly slow economic growth, and blackouts can cost an economy billions of dollars, as did the August 2003 blackout in the Northeast. As these trends inevitably continue, these economic consequences will become more serious.

Furthermore, the negative environmental impacts of fossil fuel-generated power also harm our economy. Fossil fuel pollution, including sulphur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxide (NO2), carbon dioxide (CO2) and particulate matter, bring about economic costs that range in the billions, as does the associated health care costs that result from this pollution.

While air pollution may impose heavy costs onto society, many believe global climate change will bring about the most serious economic consequences. The insurance industry, a $1.5 trillion per year industry, is a good example of the massive scale of economic damage that climate change could potentially inflict. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, insurance industry destructive weather events cost insurers $20 billion in 1999 alone. In comparison, losses due to natural disasters totalled $24 billion throughout the entire 1980's. Overall losses have increased 15-fold since 1960, after accounting for inflation. Many in the industry believe that the recent increase in destructive weather events is in large part due to the early impacts of climate change, and that the damage that has occurred so far is just the beginning.

Fortunately, green power provides an alternative to fossil fuel-generated electricity that will help keep our economy strong. Renewable energy resources are, by their very nature, unlimited in supply. As fossil fuel resources continue do decrease in supply, driving up energy costs, this makes renewable energy resources an increasingly attractive economic option.

Job Creation: In addition to alleviating many of the negative economic impacts of conventional electricity generation, green power has the potential to be a major job creator in the U.S. Compared to conventional energy generation, renewable energy industries are significantly more job intensive. For example, every $1 million spent on oil and gas exploration creates only 1.5 jobs, and coal mining, 4.4 jobs. But for every $1 million spent on making and installing solar water heaters, 14 jobs are created; on manufacturing solar electricity panels, 17 jobs; and on generating electricity from biomass and waste, 23 jobs. A recent study concluded that increasing the use of renewable energy technologies in California would create four times more jobs than continued operation of natural gas plants. (Sawin, Worldwatch Paper 169)

As global economies, for environmental, economic, and health reasons alike, begin to transition in the coming decades away from fossil fuel-generated energy towards renewable energy generation, green power industries are set to emerge as some of the key industries of the future -- a clean, sustainable energy future. We all have a role to play in making this future a reality, and individual electric consumers can now have an immediate impact, by supporting green power.

Renewable energy represents our greatest opportunity to eliminate the environmental destruction caused by fossil fuel energy generation. Renewable energy is clean, and does not emit any pollution. In the electricity sector, increased use of green power decreases the use of fossil fuel-generated power. The more green power used, the less pollution and damage inflicted upon our natural environment.

Photo Credit: Alexia Kelley