Personal Power vs. Public Utilities

Solar power is well-suited to being captured by individuals using their own solar arrays, although there will be future issues involving the blocking of sunlight by neighboring construction – if a neighbor adds another storey onto his or her house, and blocks the sun that formerly shined on your solar panels, what do you do?

Perhaps wind power, too, could be harnessed from small turbines on the tops of houses.

But wind power, generally requiring large tracts of land to accommodate the turbines, is perhaps more suited for use by power companies, which would then sell the power to customers as is done now. In fact, such utilities as Green Mountain Power, and Florida Power and Light’s “Sunshine Energy” already allow customers to opt to buy power from less-polluting sources, although it currently costs slightly more than that produced by fossil-fuel and nuclear plants.

Obviously, power companies would rather have citizens buy power from them rather than produce their own, home-grown power. But at least some power companies are moving toward more environmentally-friendly means of production, and more will surely follow.

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