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.

• 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......
• Selling gift cards for cash or trade 'Tis the season, among other things, to buy -- and receive -- gifts for people, including gift cards when you're not quite sure what they want. You, as the giver, might want to buy such cards at a discount. Or, as the receiver, you might want to sell your gift......

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!

• Is Solar Right For Me? - Part 1. This is part 1 of "Is Solar Right For Me?" from Neil Kaminar, author of Solar Basics. Part 2 will appear next week. The answer may be no. There are many factors that determine if solar is right for your home, including your motivation, how much electricity you use, the......
• Book Review & Giveaway: 'Get Motivated!' By Tamara Lowe. This giveaway has ended.It's time for another book review and giveaway, and for those of you seeking a little motivation, this one might be for you. Get Motivated! by Tamara Lowe claims to be able to help you Overcome any obstacle, Achieve any goal, and Accelerate your success - and......

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.

• 29 Free Or Low Cost Ways To Save Energy & Money. With everyone's energy costs rising so rapidly and our economy in question at least for another couple of years, we are all starting to look for easy ways to cut energy use and save money, for little to no cost. And here is where this list, and you, the reader,......
• 9 Weekend Home Projects That Will Save You Money Winter is one of those double-edged swords that we must endure in life. We know we’ll have to endure mind-numbing coldness, but on the bright-side, this allows us to finish all of the DIY-warrior projects we have been putting off. (If you live someplace where the winter means it’s as......

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.

• Frugal Living Can Equal Green Living. Because we are away camping this week, the following is a guest post from LJ over at Mommy Gets Paid. If you like what you see here, won't you consider subscribing to her feed? Frugality is a way of life for myself and millions of people out there;we strive to......
• What Is A "Living Building"? Dear EarthTalk: I recently heard the term “living building.” Can you explain? Over the past couple of decades, architects and builders looking to green their projects turned to the addition of various piecemeal elements to save water here or cut down on electricity there. Those who added more than a......

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.

• Skepticism and resistance to living green This blog is about "Living to think green, a skeptic's journey". Definition of "Skepticism" (a) an attitude of doubt or a disposition to incredulity either in general or toward a particular object; I've been very curious about how to lower my skepticism and resistance to living green. Living green means......
• The Stimulus Package And Green Jobs. Dear EarthTalk: What kind of job opportunities might be opened up by the new federal emphasis on green projects? If it’s a U.S. industry that has the potential to be cleaner and greener, chances are the Obama administration has already set aside some stimulus money for it. In February 2009,......

Great news on wind. The American Wind Energy Association had announced 2,800MW of new wind energy installed in the first quarter of 2009. This is awsome news for renewable energy and puts us on our way to reaching President Obama’s goal of 25% of our electricity coming from renewables by 2025.

But we still have some major obstacles, the largest of which is the lack of updated, smart grid transmission lines. Unfortunately, most great land wind in areas with smaller population densities. We need to get this great power to where it is needed.  We need a renewable energy standard (RES). Everybody who wants a cleaner, healthier future needs to write their Congressmen, their Senators and President Obama and demand what we voted for, a RES today.

To read the full AWEA report click on this link: http://www.awea.org/publications/reports/1Q09.pdf

To contact your elected officials click on this link:http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml

• Black Hat At Its Best From – Justparking - An Airport Parking Site A friend of mine recently told me about an experience he was having with a competitor, and how much the whole Black Hat practice has cost him. In 2005 let’s call my friend Jones, purchase his domain name and started building his site, some of the stuff he told he......
• Home Solar Power Owners Get Credit In 2009 If you are thinking of getting home solar power in 2009, then the good news is that the number of federal and state incentives for having an energy efficient home has never been greater. The bad, of course, is that many of us are strapped for cash or home equity......