Let's assume you're honest (not entirely convinced), just know that 99.9...% (at least a few more 9's) of people don't agree with you, so that it's considered okay by society to word it the way it's worded in the article. I get you might disagree with it. But this the kind of thing that the majority decides what it means, and pretty much everyone views it the other way.
Trolling? Certainly not; to me, this whole thing is so unbelievably, blindingly obvious.
So let's take this step by step, see if you can get why this bothers me so much. Assuming you're willing to play along here, please answer the following questions:
First: the article I'm referring to makes the claim that the City of Chicago is now going to be receiving 100% renewable electricity for its municipal buildings. From that article:
Chicago is now powering all its municipal buildings with 100% renewable energy and the city helped finance a major solar farm.
To me, and I think to any reasonable person reading this, that would be taken to mean that
all of the electricity that the city is using for its municipal buildings comes from renewable sources. Not only that they are
paying for 100% renewable electricity but that they are actually receiving and using only renewable energy in those buildings.
Do you 1)agree? 2)disagree?
Second: the City of Chicago has an arrangement with a 3rd-party electrical supplier, who they're paying for 100% renewable electricity (looks like solar in this case, could be other forms of renewable energy). So they're
paying for 100% renewable electricity.
1)Agree? 2)disagree?
Third: The utility company that supplies the entire city of Chicago is Commonwealth Edison, commonly known as ComEd. The municipal buildings for the city are supplied by that utility, not by the 3rd-party supplier. There's one set of transmission lines maintained by ComEd which supply electricity to everyone in the city of Chicago.
1)Agree? 2)disagree?
Fourth: The regional utility company, ComEd, supplies electricity from various sources, which are mixed together in the grid. According to the source I gave in the first post here, the mix is:
As of 2023, Illinois generates 54.89% of electricity from nuclear power, 31.58% from fossil fuels (comprising of coal, natural gas, petroleum, and other gases), and 13.53% from renewables (comprising of wind, solar, hydropower, and biomass).
Which means that ~14% of the electricity that is supplied from the grid comes from renewables. This is to every single electrical customer in Northern Illinois.
1)Agree? 2)disagree?
Fifth: Therefore, and here's the crux of the matter: the electricity that the City of Chicago
actually receives and uses for its municipal buildings consists of ~14% electricity from renewable sources, and the rest from non-renewable sources.
1)Agree? 2)disagree?
Therefore, in summary: Since it has been established that the City of Chicago actually receives and uses a mix of electricity that contains only ~14% electricity from renewable sources, it is incorrect to state--as the article clearly says at the start--that "Chicago is now powering all its municipal buildings with 100% renewable energy".
1)Agree? 2)disagree?