What you are doing is simply choosing one kind of bulb over another for patio lighting. You are not getting multi-million dollar hand outs from the federal government.(At least I don't think you are.)
Individuals and businesses make energy use decisions every day and choose the alternatives that are most cost effective. That is not what is going on here. These are projects that never had any chance of making economic sense and are given huge subsidies and loan guarantees. The politicians defend them as “green energy” creating “green jobs”.
May I suggest at least checking the vintage of a FReeper before posting as if that person is a newbie? You can just hover your mouse over their screen name. Having written two books and many articles dealing with green racketeering over the last thirteen years, I have a pretty thorough idea of what "Green Jobs" are about.
The poster was bashing ALL "green" energy technology. I was pointing out that it has its places by providing a tangible example, effectively telling him to be a bit more thoughtful in posting such absolutes.
It's more complex than simply conservation v. generating capacity, and when more than one person are on the same line, it is difficult to make a free market function correctly. When one throws in the cost of transmission lines, plants, and line maintenance, there is an argument for a distributed generation system coupled with aggressive conservation measures, yet without coordinated action on the part of the consumers, it is impossible to make such a transition. As an example, we live in the mountains above Silicon Valley. We effectively get our power for free because of the cost of line maintenance alone, especially tree trimming. It's that distorted. I have removed almost all the trees in the corridor to reduce that cost. Yet if I take the additional conservation and site-generation measures myself to make that maintenance unnecessary on my part, there is no benefit to me; the power company still has to maintain the lines over my property for those who don't. What then in a just system? Things get complicated fast, with lots of disputes in tow.
Pacific Gas & Electric has tried incentive programs to reduce the need for new plants and distribution systems thus offsetting increased demand and it has paid off to a significant degree. The problems arise when they acquire actual control of my consumption patterns. At that point, I want them out. Unfortunately, local government uses codes and other demands as leverage to control the real estate market making site generation more difficult than it should be. We could be generating all the power we want with portable biomass gasifiers and get rid of excess fuels in as clean a manner as possible, but they would rather preclude that citing "clean air" regulations wait for the forest to burn completely and then call it an Act of God. There's a reason for that.