The Monitor

I had to link the Christian Science Monitor after reading this article. It doesn't surprise me that alternative energy sources could be used today and provide the power we need. The NC GreenPower project had me doing math. I've figured it would cost about twice as much to use alternative fuel sources, so the approximately $900 I paid in power bills last year would have doubled to $1800 using the rates the NC GreenPower group uses ($4 for a block of 100 kwh). When you talk about doubling to cost of utilities, people are going to be angry (although Greensboro is tripling the cost of garbage service w/ the closing of White Street Landfill(even that search yielded more alternative energy sources)). But back to NC GreenPower, they use hydroelectric power as one of the alternative energy sources. This can't be prohibitively more expensive than coal or gas burning plants. Niagara Falls? Hoover Dam? Don't these places provide loads of power. I wonder why Dick Cheney's energy commission couldn't come to the same conclusion as the Princeton researchers in the Monitor article.