Should I sign my mom up for clean power?
 

I know she won't and isn't so good on power herself, so I thought I might just do it and pay the extra for her. Right now she pays $0.104 p KWH, and there are two green providers that are an extra .013 per KWH...One uses 50% wind, 1% solar, and 49% small hydro. The other is 50% wind and 50% low-impact hydro.

What do you guys and gals think?

I say yes! But go one step further, you're talking about a price increase of 12.5%, so see if you can help her also reduce her power consuption by 12.5% (or more!). Better for the earth and both your wallets.

I actually fished out her most recent bill and it was for 651 KWH over the last month, I assume most of that is A/C, but evidently she is actually paying .16X a KWH right now, gee whiz.

I did switch over to cfls, but I don't know what else I can do before I leave for school. We'll see.

I've been trying to reduce my energy use lately, and have been much more conscience about turning lights off when i leave the room, not turning the AC down as much, etc. I've been able to reduce my bill by a good 15% so far. I've been thinking about running the numbers on a new cooler running PC. Newer processors use less energy and put out less heat, so I wonder how long it would take for them to pay for themselves? =)

That sounds like a good idear. Go with the one that uses a bit of solar. Diversify.

Yeah, I was thinking about getting the one with the solar, NJ actually has the nation's highest state mandate for solar use, I believe. That may be a bit old of a law now though, I forget.