After our last little debate on this, I was thinki...

2009-04-10T11:53:00.000-07:00

After our last little debate on this, I was thinking more about the cap and trade for power in our state and I started to think about where our electricity comes from.

I knew already that the majority of our power came from hydro electric and nuclear, so I did a little looking.

Turns out our state gets 75% of our power from hydro, about 10% from nuclear, about 7-10% coal and the rest from natural gas and wind.

Natural gas already runs very efficiently, so really you're talking about doing this cap and trade with less than 10% of the energy produced in our state.

I then went to the Seattle City Light website and found numbers about those who are Seattle City Light customers and where the power comes from. This can be found here: http://www.ci.seattle.wa.us/light/FuelMix/

Coal and natural gas combined count for 1.22% of the electricity for those customers. That means that 98.78% of the power used by SCL customers is already zero emissions.

So, if you are an SCL customer, it won't effect your rates at all. Most of the coal power used is in South and SW Washington. So if you live down there, maybe you'll see an increase. But frankly, it's not going to effect your bill much if at all.

In fact, since Washington is an energy exporter, such cap and trade rules in other states may actually help our own economy. If it gets more expensive for other Western states to produce their own electricity, then they may decide to use our clean electricity instead. Thus improving our local economy.

Comments on Seattle Conservative: More Legislation Coming on Climate Change

After our last little debate on this, I was thinki...