Think of it like money. If you owe me money, then you have your bank cut me a check. Or send it with Zelle. Or Apple Pay through iMessage. But then, it's your bank that's paying me. Not you. You still owe me. Now pay up, again!
Even if you write out the check by hand and give it to me, I'm still collecting the money from your bank, you. You still owe me.
Even if you give me a bunch of dollar bills, passed from your hand to mine, that's not REAL money. It's just a "Federal Reserve Note".
If your mind can handle paying for something using a credit card and then using EFT to pay off the credit card, then it can handle the idea that depositing "green" energy into the grid in one part of the grid and withdrawing the same amount of energy in another part gives you the right to say you produce all the energy you need using green sources. No, it's not the same "green" electrons coming out of the pipe that you put in (the electrons themselves aren't really flowing in the first place), any more than it's the same dollars and cents coming out of your bank account that you deposited.
Another analogy: When you put the quarter in to rent your shopping cart at ALDI, you get the quarter back when you return it, right? WRONG! Usually the clerk at the register takes your groceries and puts them into another cart that he has at the end of the checkout lane. You walk up to the store with a nice, clean quarter, and you go back to your car with someone else's grimy coin. Then someone who probably doesn't deserve it walks away with your precious clean quarter. It's a total rip-off!
