JedFonner.com

As most of my friends know, I’m fairly liberal, so it should come to no surprise to anyone that I tend to believe the science instead of the hype regarding Global Warming. And the science is in pretty good agreement that it’s real.

So I’ve decided to try and reduce my carbon footprint. My first step is to switch my energy supplier from the default provider in D.C., Pepco, to another company that will provide me with 100% Wind generated power. Strangely enough, that company is called Pepco Energy Services, but they’re not connected to Pepco except that both Pepco and Pepco Energy Services are owned by the same parent company.

As most of my friends also know, I’m kind of a nerd. So I wanted metrics on how much of an effect this change would really have. Luckily, the EPA and U.S.-Climate Technology Cooperation (U.S.-CTC) provide a handy web calculator. The only thing I had to do was add up my annual usage of kilowatt-hours (kWh), which came out to be 10,502 kWh per year (yikes!).

Based on the US-CTC calculator and these numbers, I was able to determine that my switch to green energy reduces my annual pollution by the following:

• 28 fewer pounds of nitrogen oxides
• 87 fewer pounds of sulfar dioxide
• 12,540 fewer pounds (5.7 fewer metric TONS) of carbon dioxide

Here’s some more information on what that means and some stats about my area. Click the graphic to get stats and run the Power Profiler for your area.

Run the Power Profiler to see how much you are polluting each year

Let’s see how much CO2 is produced for each megawatt-hour (MWh) delivered to my house:

• According to the CTC, Pepco emits 1098 lbs of CO2 per generated
• The industry standard assumes 1.09 MWh generated for each MWh delivered due to transmission inefficiency
• 1098 * 1.09 = 1194.48 lbs of CO2 per MWh delivered

Let’s see how many tons of CO2 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) that is:

• 1000 kWh per MWh
• 2203 lbs per metric ton
• 1193.48 / 1000 / 2203 = 0.000542 metric tons of CO2 per kWh

Now we calculate how many metric tons of CO2 are produced to generate the 10,520 kWh needed to power my home:

• 0.000542 * 10,520 = 5.7 metric tons of CO2 per year