To the Editor:

It has recently been reported that West Windsor has hired an energy agent to evaluate purchasing electricity from a Third Party Supplier in an attempt to save money; Princeton has also been approached with a similar proposal. Governing officials and voters should be aware that in general cheap power is dirty power, and that currently the cheapest electricity comes from coal-fired plants. A choice of the lowest priced power will mean support for mountaintop removal, black lung disease, coal ash waste heaps, more mercury and other air toxic emissions, and increased carbon emissions.

The decision criteria should include not only price but also a careful examination of the Environmental Disclosure Statement (EDS) specifying the fuel used to generate power and the resulting emissions levels. A more subtle trap is that some Third Party Suppliers package cheap, dirty power with Renewable Energy Certificates, claiming that these offset any and all emissions from fossil fuels, calling the resulting concoction clean, renewable energy. This is totally, completely false, and should be immediately evident from the EDS submitted with the bid.

Currently, residential certified wind energy (www.ethi
calelectric.com) costs 13.8 cents per kWh, about 2 cents per kWh more than the PSE&G rate, and one might expect a smaller differential for a municipality.

There is no avoiding the fact that it costs a bit more to do things correctly. If elected officials are unwilling to pay a small premium for clean power at least they should not poison the planet even more by choosing cheap, dirty power for our towns.

Alfred Cavallo

Western Way