UNBELIEVABLE – A Government sanctioned Flim-Flam

Green power more complex than it seems

CHARLESTON, W.Va. - If you're willing to pay American Electric Power another $15 a month, the company will make sure all of the electricity that flows into your house comes from a wind farm in Illinois or Indiana.

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It's a little complicated, but here's how: For every 1,000 kilowatt-hours of renewable energy it buys, AEP gets what is called a Renewable Energy Certificate, or REC. RECs are commodities that can be bought, sold or traded. They're similar to sulfur dioxide emissions allowances companies buy, sell and trade to meet Clean Air Act emissions limits.

AEP has RECs for the wind power it's buying now. Theoretically, those certificates could be used to meet some eventual greenhouse gas limit - and AEP would avoid otherwise lowering its coal plant emissions, but if customers buy up all of AEP's RECs by joining the Green Pricing Option, the company would have to buy more renewable energy or install more renewable generation on its own system.

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