Finally, My Home-Grown Kilowatts

There have been a few sparks generated in this space recently. But what excites me more are the sparks being generated in my basement. That's right, I'm finally generating my own electricity.Back in October, I mentioned in this blog that I was installing a combined heat and power generation system in my home. It replaced a century-old coal furnace that had been converted to oil, during, I'm guessing, the Truman administration.

Well, the installation went well, and the unit works great. In the past month only one place was sucking energy out of this house: the local inspectors. They dutifully inspected and passed the unit five weeks ago but couldn't bring themselves, even after repeated telephone calls, to break the news to us. Without the city's, and by extension the utility's, imprimatur, I was not allowed to flip the switch on.

All that means, is that while I was spending money on natural gas to heat my home and home-office, I was needlessly spending money on electricity that I could have generated myself.

But that's history now, and the Ferguson Power Plant is cranking away. And while burning natural gas is far from green, it's a lot closer than the oil I had been burning. And the electricity I'm using to power my desktop is simply a byproduct of staying warm.