An environmental blog appropriately titled "treehugger.com" recently posted a review of the EPA's report on the top 50 buyers of green energy in the U.S., and everyone on it deserves a hats off. The list includes everything from some of the biggest conglomerates in the nation to local city governments, and some of them are impressive and surprising. It is good to see so much of a trend toward the use of green energy.
Some of the notable groups on the list include Intel for the #1 spot (for the 2nd year in a row), which bought up 1,301,200,000 kWh of wind power per year, powering just under 50% of its entire operation. Pepsi Co. purchased 1,144,773,154 kWh of green energy, which powered 100% of its operation. While it's impressive that PepsiCo. managed to power ALL of its operation with green energy, they still produce millions of plastic bottles yearly, so PepsiCo. is not quite a 100% green company. Dell purchased over 500 million kWh of biogas, solar, and wind power, which interestingly provides enough energy to run 158% of its operation. This means that they buy MORE green energy than they need. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? I can't decide if its admirable that they used so much of their revenue to purchase green energy, or if its shameful that they bought more than they needed. If the surplus energy is not returned to the power grid, it could be an enormous waste of energy.
Also interesting is the city of Houston, TX, which runs on almost 25% green energy. Higher education also made an appearance on the list, with both NYU and the entire California State University system powered by 100% green energy. Finally, the EPA itself came in 14th place for most green energy purchased.
I am glad that the EPA publishes these kinds of reports, and I hope that they continue to do so and publicize it vigorously. The more credit these companies get for using green energy the better, and hopefully more energy-users will follow suit.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment