#56 of 100... Buy electricity from a wind power provider

Ever heard of Bullfrog Power? About three years ago, I was being my Master Composter/Recycler Volunteer self at a trade show (educating the public about ways to reduce their contributions to the landfill) when a volunteer from another booth brought me a brochure about buying electricity from greener sources. A lot of Alberta's energy is derived from coal-based electricity (we have huge coal pits that provide fuel for the Genessee power plants west of Edmonton), and unfortunately, coal power contributes a lot of greenhouse gases to our planet.

The lovely volunteer girl offered me a new alternative energy option. Nope, I'm not talking about nuclear power, especially not since the March near melt down at Fukushima. More like this:

Her brochure explained that for a little more money each year, we could buy wind energy rather than the coal power offered by our energy provider. And being interested in reducing our emissions and trying to leave a smaller carbon footprint so future generations have a fighting chance, we hopped on board with many other Bullfrog customers. Alternative energy sources have to replace fossil fuels if we want to slow global climate instability and end resource wars. The way we see it, that little bit extra we pay each month is our investment in a cleaner, healthier and happier future, not just for us, but for our brothers and sisters all across the globe. Definitely worth the price!

Are you able to buy electricity from an alternate energy provider? It might take a bit of effort to find out... but if you learn that the option doesn't exist where you are, if you ask your energy provider what they're doing to develop non-fossil fuel energy sources, perhaps they'll consider coming up with different options once they know consumers like you prefer them. My husband's cousin in Canada's far north tells us that even the remote community of Cambridge Bay is trying to come up with more sustainable energy options. If they can do it way up in the Land of the Midnight Sun, there's no excuse for the rest of the planet.

Anyway... today's Simple Suggestion is an encouragement to look at where your electricity comes from and see how sustainable it could be with a little encouragement from you. There's no such thing as a perfectly clean energy source -- even solar panels and wind turbines require a fair bit of fossil fuel energy input before they're up and running -- but over the long term, they're more environmentally friendly than the others.

And just in case you're interested, here's how our clean energy provider explains itself:

P.S. Looking for more Simple Suggestions? Try here.