Why Renewables
This section contains information about renewable energy, climate change and sustainability, and the important role they will play in our future. AllGreen wants you to understand these issues so that you can make knowledgeable decisions about renewable energy and the role it will play in your home or business.
Renewable energy is widely used in most areas of Europe but is relatively new to the U.S. and Canada. Europeans sought out alternative sources of power and heat many years ago as a way to escape high prices for heating oil, electricity and natural gas. Their governments played an important role too, underwriting the cost of renewable energy appliances with generous grants and low cost financing.
Fuel prices in the U.S. are now catching up. Heating oil and other fuel prices are at record high levels and expected to go higher as the economy recovers. We're now in the same boat as the Europeans, meaning it's time for us to follow their lead in adopting sustainable, alternative sources of power and heat.
The good news is, there are compelling reasons to adopt renewable energy:
Save money Renewable power and heat can actually SAVE YOU MONEY! If you now use oil, propane or electricity for heating, you can save up to 70 percent by switching to a biomass fuel such as wood, wood pellets or agricultural waste. In many cases a high-efficiency biomass boiler pays for itself in as little as 3-4 years. Try our heating
cost calculator to see how much you can save. Wind and solar appliances can pay for themselves in as little as 6-8 years through lower power bills. These payback periods are even less with the many tax rebates, grants and other
financial incentives now available.
Fight climate change Your carbon footprint is a measure of the impact our activities have on the environment, and in particular climate change. It relates to the amount of greenhouse gases produced in our day-to-day lives through burning fossil fuels for electricity, heating and transportation. Learn more in the
Carbon Footprint section.
Create "green collar" jobs Adoption of renewable energy leads directly to the creation of new jobs in your local community. Instead of exporting the dollars we spend every month on power and heat to foreign countries, many of which don't particularly like us, we can keep them in the community when they support living-wage jobs in equipment sales, installation and service and biomass fuel production and delivery. These are permanent jobs that cannot be sent off-shore in the future.
Promote energy independence Locally produced renewable energy reduces our reliance on foreign oil. We can keep the dollars here and reduce our economy's exposure to supply disruptions by foreign powers.
There are many ways to reduce your cost of power and heat, and your carbon footprint. Probably the easiest way is to simply use less. The section on
energy efficiency and conservation explains how.
Once you've minimized consumption, it's time to look at different forms of renewable energy and learn which might work for you. We've divided this information by power source -
biomass,
solar and
"small" wind, that is, wind power sized for your home or business.
The issue of climate change has spawned a good deal of political activity and controversy. AllGreen has no formal position on the rightness or wrongness of Cap and Trade or Carbon Taxes. But we strongly believe it's time for action to discourage use of fossil fuels and encourage adoption of clean, renewable energy. To us, the question is not IF or even WHEN, it's HOW do we do it. This section provides
thoughtful commentary on all sides of the issue.
Controversy also arises when new technologies come to market, and renewable energy is no different. Outdoor wood boilers have probably sparked the biggest controversy because of the smoke many of them produce. Local wind generators are next on the list, with complaints about noise and unsightly towers. This section provides background on the issues and current status of
federal and state legislation to deal with the complaints.
Finally, we've included a
glossary of terms to help you understand the new vocabulary that accompanies this new field. The glossary is constantly updated so check back often when you encounter a term you do not understand.