Tilting At Windmills
Over Electric Service
"Hello, are you the folks on TV who say we should switch our electric service to you because you make all your electricity with windmills?"
"Yes, that's us -- Windbag Alternative Energy, where your green is greenest!"
"And you REALLY don't use coal or oil or any other polluting fossil fuels to generate your power?"
"That's right, sir, we have a wind farm with 1,000 twin-100-foot-blade windmills that generate all our electricity."
"Great! Come on out and hook me up right now!"
"Come on out, sir? That's not quite how it works."
"Well, sure, guess you just can't hop in the truck like that without calling someone in to cover the phones. How about, say, 9:30 tomorrow morning?"
"Nine-thirty ... ? No, no, no, you don't seem to understand. We don't make appointments ... "
"No appointments? Oh, great. So I have to take off all day to wait for you to show up? Say, you aren't affiliated with the cable company, are you?"
"Cable company? No -- see, we don't HAVE to come to your house to activate your Windbag account. We can do it over the phone, right now. Just tell me your name, current supplier, a valid credit card ... "
"Wait, wait, just hold on a minute, here. If you don't come out here, how do you wire me up to your clean, green, wind-generated electricity?"
"Sir, I'm not sure you understand ... "
"What's to understand? You run all those commercials with the little kids saying 'Pollution is NOT an option,' and talking about your 'big, giant windmills.' And I want my electricity to be clean and fresh, not sooty and dirty. I even dusted off all my lightbulbs and swabbed out my outlets with damp Q-tips."
"Damp Q-tips?"
"You betchum. My ears are still ringing."
"I can imagine. But you see, we don't actually ... "
"Don't actually what? Look, I'm an ecological kinda guy, you're on TV telling me I don't have to buy my electricity from the polluting power company anymore, and here I am on the phone with you trying to get you to hook me up with your windmill electricity. What's 'actually' about it?"
"Well, we don't actually run a physical wire to your house, you still get your electricity through the existing wiring."
"Oh, I see. You disconnect my wire from the old wire and hook it up to your wire. How long does that take?"
"Pardon?"
"I mean, how long is my power off while you're up the pole making the switch?"
"Up the pole?"
"Yeah, and come to think of it, what do you do to keep me up and running if the wind stops blowing out there where your windmills are? Should I be stocking up on backup batteries, just in case?"
" ... Wind? Stops blowing?"
"Heck fire, yes! I don't want to miss the eating-really-gross-stuff part of 'Fear Factor' just because you get a sudden calm out there in -- where'd you say those windmills are?"
"Um, a really windy valley out in California. But I'm trying to tell you that we don't directly connect you to our wind farm. We just feed that electricity into the general power grid. The electricity coming into your home will be the same electricity you've always had."
"The same ... say, what kind of scam are you folks running? I pay you special for clean electricity, and still get the same old crud coming out of my sockets?"
"Sir, electricity is neither dirty nor clean. It's just ... electricity. Flowing electrons. Alternating current. One-ten/two-twenty. We just don't use fossil fuels to produce OUR electricity. But it all moves through the same wires, no matter who generates it, or how they generate it."
"Who? Or how? You mean I might even be getting some NUCULAR electricity from you guys?"
"No, not from US. But like I said, it all comes through the same wires -- wind, coal, gas, hydro, and, yes, nuclear ... hello? Hello?
" ... Lamps Unlimited, may I help you?"
"Yeah, you sure can. I need me some lead lampshades. And quick!"
