I've gotten interested in lowering my carbon footprint. That's led me to do some light research on a couple of consumer power topics.

CleanPowerSF is San Francisco's green energy program. Basically PG&E operates the grid but CleanPowerSF gets the power from green sources. Surprisingly, there's no real extra cost for typical users.

The image above is their Power Content Label, a national standard for reporting where your power comes from. The Green program is at least 97% fossil-fuel-free. Note that large hydroelectric does not technically count as "renewable" on this label for political reasons. Here's a list of other power content labels in California for comparison. Ordinary California power is 40% fossil fuels. Pacific Power in the the north is over 75% fossil fuel.

The California Climate Credit is a carbon tax thing. The big power generation companies pay a carbon tax to the state for greenhouse gas emissions. Some of that tax is given directly to consumers; $50-$200 a year for each customer. I don't understand why it's set up that way.

I've been doing other power related stuff, too. I'm getting solar installed, that makes good financial sense if you can afford a 7 year investment horizon. I also changed my investment strategies to avoid fossil fuel companies; that's really just a cost to me but I feel better about it.