The great coal debate

Wednesday 12th August 2009

 

Yes, i have been abit busy/slack hence why its been awhile since my last blog.

 

Electricity bills have been my issue this month. I have been searching through various websites & blogs to determine how you find out which is the cheapest provider, and will it cost you your green soul if you did go with the cheapest? I stumbled across the fab Greenpeace website that describes the 'dirtiest' electricity providers in Melbourne. They even went so far as to create the 'Australia's Dirtiest Energy Retailer Award'. Check it out:

 

http://www.greenpeace.org/australia/news-and-events/news/Climate-change/simplyenergy-220509

 

To my shock, my brothers workshop is with Simply Energy which sparked my interest to find a new & greener alternative for him. He was more then happy to let me do this, considering how expensive his bill was & the fact that Simply Energy charge for something called a 'congestion fee'. I would assume that this would be during peak hour .... people going to work, dinner time, maybe even Saturday night before you you hit the night out with your 5 closest friends (can you see the hint of sarcasm in my sentence)? Why would they charge a higher fee during 'peak' (which is listed on the bill) & slap you with a congestion fee on top? Who knows?

 

I found another link that lists Australia's energy providers & where they stand with the use of coal. Check out the simple table:

 

http://www.greenpeace.org.au/climate/retailers.php

 

Turns out Commercial Green, JackGreen & Red Energy are the winners in the coal debate. They are committed to not building anymore coal power stations, committed to not buying electricity from new coal power stations & they dont own any power stations. The big loses where: AGL, Simply Energy & ActewAGL. Greenpeace even have links to email addresses of CEOs of other energy providers, so you have the option of sending them an email to express your concern.

 

The next step was to actually see how much these 'green companies' charge for their services. Turns out they are alot cheaper then the 'dirtier' companies, but of course thats relying on www.switchwise.com.au which i assume works in the same way that iselect.com.au works....not very well as they only compare the companies that subscribe to their services. However, i did input the average energy consumption & got my reccommended energy providers which were Red Energy & Jackgreen, both have recieved fab reviews for their 'green' strategic direction. Apparently we can save between $600 - $800 per year on our energy bill. I then jumped onto www.choiceswitch.com.au to find out if there was much of a difference in results given by switchwise.com.au. Turns out now...i am abit confused!

 

Red energy- 100% renewable energy, but 0% accredited green power

Energy Aust - Cheap Cheap but no green power or renewable energy

Jackgreen- Depends, if you pay more, you get more % of green power

 

hmmm....I think Red Energy seems to be the goer at the moment. This is actually quite the opposite to Katie's blog re: her luck of the draw with electricity in the Solomons! I am glad we are not subjected to contanst electricity shortages....cant live without the net!

 

Ok onto things actually SES related!

Operation Chaps & Chainsaw 2 has been announced...yay! If you read my past blogs you would have seen what this is about. This time I will be nominating myself with the Sunday crew, to help out. Hope to provide you with some photos. Check out the Chaps & Chainsaw 1 photos:

 

 

 

 

 

*****FIRE SEASON*****

Fast approaching & no doubt you have heard the news of the 'projected' severity this year....hot!

What is SES doing about it? Well...we are preparing madly, as per usual.

The Footscray Unit is confirmed to undertake the Wildfire Awareness session in September, run by the CFA. This is required for members to be deployed to fire affected areas. We also have the majority of our members trained in Introduction to AIIMS which is a great starting point.

 

Happy training!

 

Ruby

 

 

 

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