[UPDATE1PM Friday:
Mea Culpa:
I just spoke to Laurie Parker at NES, and it turns out that I misunderstood Jo Lynn when she said Al Gore pays $432 for his entire electricity bill.
It turns our my colleagues here are correct. Laurie of NES says Jo Lynn was talking about his Green Power Switch only when she said that he covers his entire bill with under $500 dollars. He covers his useage for under $500.
As Laurie describes it, Al Gore is their only customer who covers all of his power use with the green energy units. That does indeed "make up 100% of his bill". Most of their customers pay only for 2 or 3 units, contributing only an extra $8 or $12 a month towards developing green energy.
Laurie Parker says NES wishes there were more customers as generous as the Gores!
And thats my story.]
[UPDATE. 8 AM Thurs: I just called and left a message with both NES (thanks bubbles)and TVA/GPS, when I hear back I will update this. On Wednesday I wrote about a conversation I had with an employee of Green Power Switch which appeared to me to be fundamdentally different from what we are reading in the media about the amount of the electricity bill he pays. I came in for a lot of vituperation, but I stand behind everything I heard and understood. I was carefull to not misunderstand. While I stand by my diary in terms of what Jo Lynn from GPS/TVA told me, I have changed the title to a non-contested thing she said, which is:
Al Gore and people like him have contributed to their rocketing growth.
Hope this is ok with everyone here? I do still think its worth us asking directly because journalism so often slants things so we jump to conclusions. I know we all here want the truth. It is what distinguishes us from other blogs.]
Heres my original conversation with Jo Lynn, minus the warty area where I misunderstood her: for the record.
Today I spoke with Jo Lynn, the representative from Green Power Switch, the company Al Gore buys his electricity from. I had called her a week ago and left a message that I wanted to buy a Green Power Switch Gift Certificate to buy Green Power for someone who lived in the Tennessee Valley Authority coverage area (Senator Inohofe, but I'll get to that later).
She took a week to call me back, so I guess business is brisk. As soon as she got on the phone I cut to the chase. Is it true I asked, what is written everywhere that Al Gore spends lavishly on your Green Power Switch electricity?
She laughed and said [some things I misunderstood so I have removed them]
...Electric bills obtained by The Tennessean, however, showed that Gore is paying a premium on his bills to be part of the "green power" program. Gore purchased 108 blocks of "green power" for at least each of the last three months, according to a summary of bills from Nashville Electric Service.
That’s a total of $432 a month spent to pay extra for solar or other renewable energy sources. NES power – outside this program - is derived largely from coal, which emits carbon, a green house gas.
No, she told me his entire bill is covered by his purchase of units for Green Power exclusively, and its $400 something average. She said that that is unusual. Most people pay their regluar bill and buy just a little extra per month, most $20 or less extra per month to help grow the Green Power business, but Al Gore buys only the Green Power, his bill is entirely made up of the $4 units of Green Power.
Of course as she pointed out to me " of course, we can't tell those electrons where to go" so even though he pays for exclusively Green Power, the Green Power gets muddied in with the dirty power in the transmission lines.
So theres the real shocker folks right there!
HEADLINE NEWS:
Al Gore's So Called Green Energy mingles in with dirty electrons in the powerlines!
I could hardly conceal my horror. But I had to know. Enquiring Minds Want To Know, unlike those in the media.
So my next question was, well, is it doing any good? Is this So Called environmentalist, who allows his green electrons to mingle with nasty dirty electrons from some of the worst environmental scofflaws in the Fossil States - when this evil, evil man pays all his electricity kitty to Green Power Switch: Well, is that helping to grow their alternative energy business?
Yes, as it turns out.
Jo Lynn told me that when they started Green Power Switch in 2000, they had "only 3 Wind Turbines and a handfull of Solar".
Thanks to Al Gore, and customers like him, they now have "18 Wind Turbines and 16 Solar Installations" providing Green Power to residents in 4 states. She pointed out that "ironicly some of the Wind turbines are out on reclaimed coal mining operations that had got closed down for being environmental catastrophes."
So if you are curious about the truth, try calling the source yourself, and just ask. I hope I don't get her in trouble because she was a nice lady, and theirs is a nice business. I wish them well.
Al Gore chose to buy his electricity exclusively from the Green Power Switch. This has helped grow green energy exponentially in the South in 6 years. Thats really the headline.
Vice President Al Gore helps grow Green Energy by taking action as a consumer.