Lately everybody seems to have videos on their websites. Usually I find it distracting from the real information I am trying to get. But, every once in a while you find a video that you feel everybody should view. If you want to know more about how the government is handling global warming you need to watch this fun and informative video. Take a few minutes out of your day to make a difference for you planet.

The Story of Cap & Trade from Story of Stuff Project on Vimeo.

• Going Green: Costs Big Bucks, Returns Big Bucks I recently wrote an article on ways to increase business profit by going green. Each suggestion was something that was relatively cheap when compared to the possible return on investment. However, relatively cheap doesn’t cut it at a time when we are going through a global recession. With unemployment above......
• West Virginia Provides An Energy Rebate Through Residential Tax Credits There have been rapid advancements in renewable energy technology over the past couple of decades. Residential energy sources, such as oil and gas heat, have expanded to include solar and other power sources. Many homes can get an energy rebate for using sun-powered equipment in residential dwellings. Last summer, West......

I have written about LED lights before, I am a great fan. They use less energy and are quite bright, as opposed to some energy saving light bulbs. Now I have found a great home improvement product that will save you time, aggravation and money. Outdoor, solar powered, LED lighting. Now you can place a light post at the end of your driveway without running wiring underground or hiring an electrician, plus this is real lighting, not just accent lighting so you and your guests can really see your way in the dark. No leaving the light on before you leave for work in the morning, the lights come on automatically at dusk and shut off at dawn. All this for about what you would pay for conventional lighting and no electrician and no electric bills now or in the future.  Be the first in your neighborhood to have the greenest outdoor lighting available.

• A Tale of Two Car Service Companies A few days ago, the oil light in my wife's Jeep started ringing with attention. This was curious because she had just been Jiffy Lube a month earlier. We immediately thought that it had to be one of two things: Jiffy Lube had made some kind of error or......
• Energy Rebates This week: Progress Energy Solar Rebate, NSW Energy Rebates, Xcel Energy Rebates on Hold Progress Energy solar rebate program begins on March 15 10 Connects St. Petersburg, Florida - Progress Energy has announced they will be giving out rebates to those customers, both residential and commercial, who install solar systems, either solar PV (photovoltaic) systems or solar water heaters. ... Solar energy hearing......

It’s hard to believe,  it’s been since July since I posted to my blog.  Sorry folks, I let life get in the way.  Other than family issues which we won’t get into I have been going to school for Environmental Technology.  Other than being one of the dreams I’ve always had, it is given me a whole insight on where this blog should go.  Instead of focusing just on energy-saving products.  I think I should do a blog that concentrates on nothing but what is on my mind at the moment.

So for today, I want to talk about a search engine called Regoog.  Regoog through it is an environmentally friendly  search engine based on the Google platform.  They use a black screen, which is supposed to save 34% more energy over using a white screen.  I know this sounds inconsequential, but when you think about how many people Google everyday, every bit adds up.

So search away and save green and have a great New Year!

• Are You Wasting Valuable Energy and Money? This post was written by USwitch.  With gas and electricity prices spiraling, consumers are looking for ways of saving money. As well as establishing an energy saving regime in the home which can reduce the average fuel bill by up to £250 according to the Government it is worth shopping around......
• Google Algorithm: Updated 24th February 2011 Google has changed its algorithm. It did so on 24th February 2011. This is the so called content farm update. In a nutshell, Google are saying the new update will promote original content of high quality and demote both low quality content and copies of high quality content. The......

I don’t usually like to get political or get involved in the discussion of the national economy, but… It just seems to me that when a company from a foreign country comes in and buys a large portion of an American company it threatens our national security. Just my personal opinion. Now I am reading how companies from Japan and Germany are coming in and buying into American renewable energy to take advantage of new renewable energy initiatives (http://bit.ly/B5Byb). Are we selling ourselves and our wind overseas? I would love to hear your comments on this.

• GM's Yukon Denali Hybrid: Worst Greenwashing Campaign Ever? I now understand why General Motors (aka Government Motors) has done so poorly over the last three decades:  they just don't seem to get the big picture when it comes to winning the battle of public opinion. Earlier this week, GM announced plans to retrofit the GMC Yukon Denali line......
• Study Shows Homeowners Using Landscaping to Save Energy and Water In this current day and age, where common activities among people include the tightening of wallets and the fearing of soaring energy bills, almost everyone has had to adopt some substantial practices inside and outside of their own homes. Americans are also incorporating techniques in their landscaping that are allowing......

My wonderful husband has taught our German Shepherd, Duke, to open and close the screen door by himself. It originally started innocently enough. We were remodeling downstairs and often times my husband would be carrying heavy things in and out and nobody was around to open the door for him. Duke would jump through hoops of fire for my husband and quickly mastered this trick. The problem is that now the remodel is over, I refuse to use the energy to turn on the air conditioner so the doors are always open, and now Duke uses the screen door as his private doggy door. Needless to say the screen has been pushed through and ripped and is now a public mosquito entrance.

 I decided to go online and see if any of the local stores carried that pet screening that stretches instead of ripping when an animal jumps up. What I found is a great energy saving screen. A company named Phifer, that makes the pet screening, makes a whole line of screening and fabric. I never even knew there was something called weave technology, where the type of fabric woven in different ways can have different effects. The one that caught my eye was the Super Solar Screen.

 The company claims the Super Solar Screening reflects 90% of the suns heat and glare, improves daytime privacy, and still allows for excellent outward visibility, not to mention it keeps the bugs out. Sounds like the claims on an infomercial, but at the Home Depot site the product had been rated and review by two individuals. Both reviews gave the screening 5 out of 5 stars and both said it performed as advertised.

 This will be a huge benefit for a house like mine that faces northwest. I get full sun at my backdoor every morning in the summer; I don’t like to open the door and shades because it raises the temperature in the house. Then in the late afternoon I get the full effect of the sun as it gets ready to set so I have to close all the doors and shades on that side of the house. I am hoping with my Super Solar Screen, I will be able to get airflow from the windows and doors without the heat and glare from the sun. If I decide to turn on the air conditioner it should not have to work as hard with the Super Solar Screen. But maybe with the heat and sun reflected away from the house I won’t have to turn on the air conditioner at all. Sounds like a huge energy saver to me.

 As for my screen door, apparently there is no pet friendly screen that can hold back a German Shepherd. I am going to replace the screen with the Super Solar Screen and buy pet guards to keep Duke from going through it.

• Home Energy Management: Are You Wasting Money On Your Home Energy? [The following is a guest post brought to you by uSwitch] We recently talked about the need for proper business energy management, now we will switch gears and focus on the home. With electricity prices rising all the time and fossil fuels nearing depletion, it makes a lot of sense......
• Simple Energy Solutions That Save Big Money As energy prices go up, many people are looking to alternative power solutions in order to save money. However, converting an entire house to go off grid can be costly, and the work involved may be too much for some homeowners. That doesn't mean that you have to abandon the......

Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much. – Helen Keller

 Sometimes people don’t vote because they think “one vote can’t change anything”. I think the 2000 election proved that wrong, but some people still don’t believe. Now is your time to be counted by your elected officials. If you want this country to move forward with cleaner energy contact you Congressional Representatives and Senators today. It only takes a minute but can help save the earth a life time.

 Click here to email your U.S. Representative and Senators about the NAT GAS Act today!

• Budget Crunched? Not sure about where you live, but here in Fredericksburg, VA the gas prices have really started to come down. Just last night I filled up both of our vehicles for $3.09 per gallon for regular unleaded. While the stock market has begun to resemble a terrible train wreck, the......
• Green Hybrid Electric Vehicles and Toyota Prius Hybrid vehicles are being converted by their owners into vehicles that run purely on electricity. People who drive hybrid vehicles that are easy on gas to begin with are becoming increasingly interested in the idea of converting their vehicles from completely gasoline powered to completely electricity based like many of......

When it comes to clean energy, saving our environment and living green, the best and only place to start is energy conservation. For every unit of energy saved, a unit of energy does not need to be produced. That sounds so very simple, yet I see it over looked time and time again. People are so impressed with the newest solar product, the next residential wind turbine or if hydrogen technology will replace natural gas, that they forget that all this technology can replace a greater percent of our energy if we use less energy to begin with. In other words energy conservation and efficiency are very often more economically worthwhile than renewable sources and also helps bridge the gap between demand for and availability of renewable energy.

We have all seen list after list of ways to save energy around our house; these should not be pushed to the side because you “did” the list last year. Like all maintenance around the house, conservation cannot be done once and forgotten about, that is why they call it maintenance. There are always new products coming out that can make energy conservation easier, more efficient and more affordable.

My attic is always the first place I look when thinking about energy loss. I have a cathedral ceiling in my living room and just never feel comfortable in the room during the cold winter months. Obviously I have insulated but I still just feel the heat escaping. So I went up to the attic at night leaving the living room lights on and the attic lights off. Bingo! I was able to identify several areas that were not completely insulated around the recessed lighting (make sure your recessed lighting fixtures are rated to have insulation around them). Next I went up to the dark attic on a very sunny morning, before the heat made it unbearable. Again, Bingo! There were a couple of places along the eaves where I could see daylight. Once these were fixed I started looking at different insulation products for attics that were DIY friendly and wallet friendly. Two products caught my eye: Super Insulating Radiant Barrier and the Battic Door Attic Stair Cover.

The Super Insulating Radiant Barrier is a fold out, insulating, reflective product that goes over your current insulation and/or over the roof rafters to create a barrier that actually radiates heat back down to the living space.

The Battic Door Attic Stair Cover is an insulating box that goes over dropdown attic stairs and keeps heat from escaping. This product is a huge improvement over ones of days gone bye. I have had a similar product for about fifteen years and can see this will pay for itself in very short time.

Take time to look at these and other energy saving products. A dollar spent today could save hundreds over a life time not to mention helping to save the environment. Never under estimate the heat, or cooling, loss in your home. Keep vigilant about conservation, any energy saved is energy that does not have to be produced.

• Ten Tips Toward a More Eco Friendly Home Tip 1 - Turn the lights off any time that they are not needed, even if you are just moving from room to room in the course of your day. According to Energy Star, as much as 20 percent of a home's overall energy use comes from its lighting. Using......
• What Do You Do To Go Green? Going green can vary for all of us. We each do what we can in our lives to be environmentally conscious and reduce our eco-impact. If you haven't began your green adventure, here are a few simple steps you can take to go green that my family and I have......

Thumbs up to Ken Salazar and the Department of the Interior, they have issued five leases to private companies to explore offshore sites for wind energy. All these sites are off the shore of New Jersey and Delaware. I hope this is only the beginning of government being proactive in helping private enterprise develop off shore wind sites.

Here in Massachusetts, where I live, Cape Wind has been fighting an uphill battle, at their expense, to get government approval for a project in Nantucket Sound. Eight years of pushing for wind energy is too long if we are actually going to make wind and renewable energy a reality. In order for individual states to meet any renewable energy quota we need more positive government actions like this.  

Lets all pray that the government will continue to put their money and decisions where their mouth is.

• The Alternative Energy Bandwagon As I hear more people talk on this topic, I grow more hopeful that the pain we are feeling in our wallets at the gas pump will pave the way toward a better future. In an interview with the former mayor of New York, Ed Koch, I heard him call......
• Green Living Everyday In 2008, they combined a collection of industry specialists and market expertise to create Green Living Everyday. Their intention is to help all individuals, groups and industry to meet the environmental challenges ahead; making available a growing range of products to assist in making lifestyles more green, and generate savings on......

In a June 1^st article by Dan Cook, in Arizona’s The Daily Courier, he wrote about a Habitat for Humanity home that had been built as a “net-zero energy” house.  The idea is to use smart building products and techniques, as well as alternative energy sources, such as solar, so that the house does not use any energy from the grid or fossil fuel. This is a whole new niche in the building industry and there is an unlimited amount of products and services to choose from. The problem is that builders and prospective  homeowners, we don’t know which products are proven, or will work in our situation, or have a chance to see the product installed or talk to a builder who has actually installed the product.

That is why I found this article interesting. If the companies offering these great new innovative energy saving products donated them to Habitat for Humanity, we would all benefit. First the company would win, getting actual exposure to the public with their product, as well as goodwill, for donating the product. Any builder interested in the product could donate their time to help install the product at the Habitat for Humanity job site. This gives them goodwill for helping, but also gives them experience with new products and techniques that they can sell to their clients. The homeowner wins because they are buying a product that they have seen work and are having it installed by someone who has had experience with the product. The recipient of the Habitat for Humanity home wins with lower or no utility bills. And last, but not least, the environment wins every time we do not use fossil fuel to power our world. This could be the ultimate win-win situation.

• A Liquid Wrench For Every Job Liquid Wrench, a company that's been in business since 1941, knows how to make products people really need and use. Their product line includes lubricants, penetrating oils and protectants for people who know that one product can't do everything. While some products on the market today are hyped as all-purpose......
• Solar-Powered Camping Products Let's face it: if you're going to be taking an extended trip into the woods, nature doesn't exactly provide power outlets with every tree. The more rustic your camping experience will be, the more you're going to depend on unusual sources for power and energy. Luckily, we have solar technology......

According to Boston Business Journal, Boston’s Museum of Science announced this week that it will be putting a wind turbine laboratory on its roof. Apparently they have already done wind studies for a year and have come to the conclusion that there is not enough viable wind in their location to create any meaningful electricity. They already have two turbines up and intend to put up three more of varying shapes and sizes ranging from 7 feet to 40 feet. The idea is to “demonstrate small wind turbines that could be erected on small businesses and homes”.

The problem is that small wind turbines cannot be erected on any building, ever. Mother Nature is a very formidable force to deal with. Any and all wind turbines have an incredible vibration; this can cause both structural and noise problems. Roof top turbines have been known to cause nails to vibrate right out of the roof. While the museum roof may be substantial enough to withstand this, with a full time maintenance crew, the average home is not engineered to withstand these forces. 

Second, there is no usable wind on a roof. When you see a small wind turbine on a roof spinning wildly, it looks like it would be generating plenty of power. The truth is, all that spinning is the turbine trying to find a steady wind in a very turbulent area. Wind is invisible, and most people don’t understand what they can’t see. Think of a stick lazily drifting down a calm stream, making slow but steady progress, then there is a rock in the way, the stick goes around the rock but gets caught twirling in the eddy behind it, there is a lot of movement, but no progress. Wind is the same way, once it hits an object, such as a house or a tree; there is wind turbulence behind the object. Another way of looking at this is a sailboat in the lee of a bluff. You feel the wind on your face, it feels strong, but the sail is slapping madly and the boat is going nowhere. A wind turbine is the same way as it searches for the wind in the turbulence.

The Boston Museum of Science would be doing the public a huge favor by teaching the physics of wind and turbulence using smoke chambers and roof mock ups to show how a nail or a screw can be loosened due to vibration. They should teach the benefits of clean wind energy when placed in the right location and the uselessness of putting it in the wrong location. With all my heart I hope the Boston Museum of Science is not advocating building mounted turbines, not only would they be putting the public at risk physically and promoting a waste of money, they will be putting a black mark on wind energy when these turbines never produce any meaningful electricity.

Look for an upcoming blog on proper wind turbine location.

For more information check out the Warwick Wind Trials data on building mounted turbines.

• 15 Ways to Reduce Energy Costs Big energy bills can bleed your budget dry, not to mention the potential impact on the environment. Cutting back on your energy consumption will help you become more ‘green’ as well as putting a bit more money back in your pocket. Here are some ways you can reduce your......
• Wasbisabi Green Wabisabi Green is artisanal quality, eco-friendly home decor and gifts featuring simply elegant designs for green living. The modern collection of stylish throw pillows and reusable bags are made out of the best organic and sustainable materials sourced worldwide such as plush organic cotton and pure kapok fiber from the......