Obama stated last night during his State of the Union that 80% of our energy should come from clean energy sources by 2035.  This is really good news for our nation and I hope President Obama and the Democrats have the power to start such a lofty initiative.

Sorry to cut it short this morning, but I really believe it is important to get the word out about this and to let your representatives know that you support the idea that President Obama proposed.

I understand that electricity/heat are one of the major bills of the household.  I know that pretty well because our heat bill usually creeps up to $400 during the harsh winter months.  We are currently in that part of the year so I want to get some ideas on how to cut back on our electricity; not only to save money but to be green.  Here is a short list that I compiled to get you started.

1. Obviously turning off the lights is first and foremost.

2.  Do you really need the TV on all night while you are on Facebook too?  Pick up a book instead.

3.  Pack your freezer/fridge so it’s full.   If there is a lot of space, fill milk jugs with water and fill the voids.

4.  Use a toaster oven for your smaller baking needs.  It costs a fourth as much to operate a toaster oven than a stove.

5.  Set your thermostat to a lower temperature during the day when you are gone and at night.

6.  Hang your clothes outside.  It costs approximately $0.35 to dry a load of clothes.  If all Americans would use the clothesline or wooden drying racks, the savings would be enough to close several power plants.

7.  Change all of your light bulbs to Compact Florescent.  This is a pretty visual statistic: If every American home replaced just one light with a light that’s earned the ENERGY STAR, we would save enough energy to light 3 million homes for a year, save about $600 million in annual energy costs, and prevent 9 billion pounds of greenhouse gas emissions per year, equivalent to those from about 800,000 cars.

8.  Christmas time is now over, but with the holiday season, some of us like to decorate with lights!  Here is an energy calculator if you are wondering how much those lights add to your energy bill each month.

9. Change out the air filter on your heater.  This will keep your furnace running at it’s top efficiency and the furnace will last longer.  It also will cut back on energy bills.

10.  Open windows instead of turning on the air conditioner.  Also keep the area around the air conditioner clean so that air flow is better.  Good maintenance will help the longevity.

Do you want to take this even further?  Why not do some of these steps at work?  Turn off your computer while you are away from your desk.  Turn off lights in rooms that aren’t used often.  Change out any inefficient lights and use fans to circulate the heat and air conditioning.   I would like the company I work for to become more green.  I am thinking about making a suggestion to them on simple changes.    Did you make any changes at work?  Are they a green company?  If so, what are they doing to reduce their impact?  Please leave me a comment below.    Thanks for visiting!

Google recently announced that they are investing about $40 million dollars in North Dakota wind farms.  As a North Dakotan, I am happy to see some of the attention this great state should get in regards to green energy.  Believe it or not, my home may be the future of US energy.

The Department of Energy produced a report that shows North Dakota being the state with the most wind potential.  Furthermore, this state ALONE has the potential to supply 25% of the US electricity needs.  I hope that this sort of investment continues here.

North Dakota has a lot to offer in terms of energy.  We have coal, oil, agriculture and now wind.  So, Google, WELCOME to North Dakota!

I am going to do a little challenge with myself.  I want to list some companies that I believe are green.  After that, I will research these companies to see what they do, if anything, to be green.  It will be interesting to see if what I believe is actually true.  I will not select companies in this exercise that I know make green products because that would be obvious.

Here is my list:  Lexus (automakers), Sun Chips, Renold’s (aluminum foil), Shape (magazine), Starbucks, and DELL.

Ok, I must admit some of these companies were brands that I selected by glancing around the room, but that will make it fun to learn something new.

1.  I heard something about Lexus going green but I don’t remember what it was.  What I learned from their website is that they reuse scraps from cushions and liners as sound insulation.  They reduce water and energy usage and have a zero landfill waste status.  They reduce, reuse or recycle 98 percent of all manufacturing leftovers.  They even plan reduce their energy consumption even more by 18% in 2011 when compared to 2001.

2. SunChips: what I understand about this company is that they are making their packaging compostable and that they run on wind energy.  I was correct in the compostable wrappers guess.  Also, 33% of every 10 1/2 oz bag of chips is made with renewable, plant based materials.  In 2010, on Earth Day,  they are set to release their first fully compostable bag, that will decompose in 14 weeks. They also helped rebuild Greensburg Kansas that was once destroyed by a tornado in a green way.  Solar power is one main source of energy in the production of SunChips.  That is a big step to a healthier planet.

3.   Reynold’s:  I seen a commercial advertising a recycled Reynold’s product.  It looks like their foil is 100% recycled aluminum and even the paperboard is 100% recycled.  After doing some more browsing on their site I found a Greening Your Kitchen tab including tips on going green from Sara Snow.  My only suggestion is that they should make these links easier to find instead of having to dig around.

4.  Shape: I am a subscriber to this magazine so I appreciate all of the green tips throughout.  Instead of finding information online, I actually dug out my new copy and read their statement at the beginning.  They state that they are the top user of recycled content for any North American women’s lifestyle magazine.  They average 305,000 pounds of post consumer waste is used and that saves 17,723 trees.

5.  Starbucks: I know that Starbucks sells fair trade coffee but I was wondering if they did more than that.  Their website is actually pretty cool.  They have videos and ways to interact with the site.  They support the local community, they encourage the use of ceramic or reusable mugs, they use LED energy efficient lighting, recycled materials, and building materials and they also allow you to take home used coffee grounds for your soil.

6.  Dell: Dell offers free computer recycling to worldwide customers; they recovered 100 million pounds in 2007 alone.  You can also donate your computer to underprivileged children and adults.  This is awesome; on their site they track how much CO2 they avoided, which is updated every other second.  So far they are at 41,202,094 tons.    During the year 2009 they completed 88 energy efficiency tasks from changing their light bulbs, temperature adjustments and upgrading their HVAC systems.

This is quite an interesting bit of information and I am glad I completed this exercise.  Learning what companies are doing to go green will help us select which changes we want to make.   Since this is part of Ben’s challenge, he will in the end select which company we will trade in our traditional purchases with a more green selection.   Are you purchasing from companies specifically because they are green over their non-green competitor?  Please leave us a comment below.

This is one of the expenses we occurred this past year that was well worth it.  It cost us $35 and we had a representative of the energy company come to our house to find ways we may be losing money and energy.  We also got additional information on what we can do to prevent energy loss.  It has been a while, but I will go through what they found in our house and ways we can save money.

First and the most biggest, our auditor found out that our house doesn’t have any insulation.  Our house was built in the late 1920′s so there are alot of little things wrong with it anyways; we just didn’t want to come across something this big.  In addition, now that the weather has been in the double digit negatives we can feel this lack of insulation all too well.  Our way of trying to fix this problem was to contact local contractor to come and fill our walls from the outside; blow it in from a hose.  Unfortunately, our walls were built using slats and filled the inside with plaster.  Other option would be to wrap with insulation and re-side around.  We decided to not go this route at the time being, but we will re-visit this task next year.

We were also advised to clean out our air conditioner coils. By cleaning these you can make your air conditioner run more efficiently.  This also works with the Refridgerator also.  These two things can save you alot of money by just doing a little yearly maintenance.

New windows was on our radar in 2009.  We got a really good deal on some Double Hung windows from Lowe’s and even got them installed in time to get a tax credit for 2010.  We may be considering some new windows on our main floor this year.  We do shrink wrap our windows over the coldest months to keep in as much heat as we can.

We were also told that our heating pipework was inefficient.  He showed me how to adjust the dampers on the ductwork to direct air flow differently.  We also had some ductwork that was coming off another room which may prevent even heat in our house.  I understand how to go about fixing this but would need a professional to do it for me.  We also need to seal some of the corners of our heater that is letting heat escape.

Lastly, and the most inefficient part of our house is our basement.  This will never be a livable basement unless we totally redo all of the walls and floors which is beyond our spending allowance.  We can however fill any cracks or holes with a spray foam, which is toxic, hence not very green.  During the winter we close the door to our basement and just don’t use it until it warms up, besides for laundry.

Well there you have it!  Our ungreen house that we need to bring into the 21st century.  We have been remodeling several different rooms since we moved in almost 5 years ago.  Now we will need to change our focus into making it more efficient; maybe by new appliances and spending the money on insulating.  Ben and I argue whether it’s worth it; whether the savings will overcome the costs eventually and quickly.  I feel it will, and it’s always worth it to make a house energy efficient even if we don’t get all of the up-front costs back.  If you have any other stories about your energy audits, please leave them in the comment section below.

This week is coming close to the end and I am thankful it is ending.   I am glad that Ashley assigned me this green task of not watching TV since it not only has saved some energy, but it is also pushing me to reexamine the time I spend in front of the television and computer.   I enjoy television, but I think that the biggest thing I could learn from this week’s experience is that I need to become more efficient at watching TV and my computer time.  I need to make more time for doing productive things NOT involving a monitor.

So, tonight I am going to miss the season premier of Chuck and it sort of ticks me off. On the other hand, I do have it recording on the DVR and will be able to watch it in about 3/4^th of the time.  I talked to Ashley about possibly setting up ‘no TV nights’ and we have not set anything up yet, but will likely try and do this.

I think I need to also set aside time away from my computer.  This blog, my job, Facebook, Reddit and Twitter all take a good chunk of time.  I know that I am not going to quit any of these things, but I think I can probably make my time with these things more efficient. 

How many of you spend much of your time with your TV/computer off?  Tell me your stories about how you best manage all of the information chaos in your life.

Yes, the TV will be turned by the time Monday comes around, but this got me thinking, what can we do to make our TV watching more efficient?  Is there even such a thing?  I think so.  I think, that with the right equipment you can cut your TV time in half.  I want to go through some things that came to my mind while I was thinking how to lessen my time in front of the TV and to bring green to our living room.

Through our cable company we also rent a DVR.  I don’t know how I made it through TV watching before we got one.  With the ability to pause and record live TV, I definitely take advantage of it’s efficiency.  I will typically start a TV show half way through so I can fast forward through all of the commercials.  Sometimes, when I have two shows on at once, I watch them both, just flip through when a commercial starts.  This saves me half the time of a regular program without missing any of the actual program.

Another green way to be entertained by your TV, is to use Netflix.  I love this company!  I feel that this is going to be the new way to watch movies.  I actually heard that DVD sales have declined. This could also be an increase interest in Blu-Ray, but could also mean the end of the DVD.  It has been a very long time since Ben and I have actually bought a movie.  When we do purchase, we will take the DVD out, then dispose of the case.  That just takes up so much space in our house, plus how un-green is that?  Ben and I also just started streaming movies through Netflix.  This requires no waste at all. It’s kind of like On Demand.  The benefits include not having to worry about movie quality or getting it in the mail.  However, there is a limited selection to choose from, but I feel in time this list will get longer.

I think there is a place for the TV in the household, but I also think that time should be limited.  However, I do think that most American’s over-use this piece of equipment.  There is so many things we could be doing instead flipping through the channels mindlessly or clicking away online.  I love to read, so I should start picking up a book once a night.  Ben and I love to be in each others company, but how come we are usually on the internet or in front of the TV at the same time?  We are addicted to these things!   Facebook and Twitter are becoming so ingrained in our lives we can’t image being without.  If you have anything you would like to add, please put your comments below.

Even though I have gone through about half of this week without watching one second of television, I still feel like I have no time. Although the challenge is to conserve energy, I think one thing that I was hoping to get out of this would be better quality time at home.  I figured I would either be spending time doing something productive or doing something with Ashley, instead we are doing the same things except with the television off.  I think it is a problem of television AND computers.

Well, I cannot give up my computer time, otherwise I might lose my job.  I suppose I could give up my computer time at home, but then I would have a tough time accomplishing everything I want to do for this blog and my other online addictions (Facebook/Twitter/Reddit).   I suppose I could try and make my time more efficient on the computer and set goals so that this darn internet does not consume my free time.  Turning off my computer would be good for the environment (and my brain) too.

I realized this last weekend that Ashley and I were sitting right next to each other playing Scrabble on Facebook.  Why?  We own the game.  I think it would have been better to get the physical game out play it instead of interacting through our laptops. 

This week started as an exercise in reducing waste, but might end up more of an examination of time management and how to best harvest all the marrow I want to squeeze out of life.  Let me know any tips you have in the comment area below.

I have completed another week of my year long quest to learn how to be green.  My wife’s challenge to me for the week was to turn off lights when I am not in a room.  Right now, we only have one lamp and one overhead light laminating the room so I think we are making progress.  I think I have learned quite a bit about electricity use and have changed my habits in a manner that will reduce our environmental footprint.

This has been an exercise in habit and I thought I would have more problems with it than I did.  Last week, my task was to stop using plastic bags and I had one heck of a time remembering to adhere to the challenge at hand.  For some reason, this week’ green challenge seemed much easier and I thought it would be considering I thought it required the sort of mental discipline as last week’s task.  So far, I have been doing a good job and I have only been told by Ashley a few times that I should turn off a light.

I am not exactly positive on the long term impact I will have by continuing to do this task, but I would imagine it will add up over a lifetime.  Ultimately, leaving lights on when you are not using them is wasteful and there is no real reason that I should leave lights on.  Turning lights off is good for the environment, good for your electricity bill and the right thing to do.  Please let me know any comments you have in the area below and stay tuned for the next task that is coming shortly.

During the course of this week, I have been making an effort to turn the lights off when I am not in a room per the rules for this week’s green challenge.  So far, this has been going very well and has only taken some effort to remind myself to do accomplish this week’s green task.  Even though it is very important for me to reduce consumption by turning lights off, I think it is also important to take a look at some of the various kinds of light bulbs and which ones are environmentally friendly.

Incandescent lights are probably the light bulbs you are most familiar with and grew up with.  These are the normal light bulbs you can get at the store for .99 cents or less and they generally last a few months.  These bulbs use between 15 and 150 Watts and over 90% of the power consumed by these bulbs is emitted as heat rather than light.  These are the dinosaurs of the light bulb world, are not green and the only benefit I can see for using them is that the upfront cost is relatively low compared to other bulbs.

Compact Fluorescent Light (CFL) bulbs are another kind of light bulb that is a much better option than the incandescent bulbs.  This is currently what we have in our house and since we started using them, I do not think we have had to replace a single CFL bulb.  The benefits are that they last much longer than incandescent bulbs, they have a greater lumens/Watt efficiency (that is, it takes less energy to create the same wattage) than incandescent bulbs, it is environmentally friendly and it is more cost efficient than incandescent bulbs.  The main downfall of CFL bulbs is that they contain a small amount of mercury in the bulb and that they are a bit more expensive up front.

Finally, we have LED lights.  LED lights are the most energy efficient light bulbs on the mass market.  Apparently, LED bulbs can last between 25,000 and 50,000 hours whereas the traditional incandescent bulbs last between 1,000 and 2,000 hours.  Even then, the light does not “burn out” in the same way that we have grown to learn.  Instead of just burning out, these bulbs fade away slowly.  The 25-50k rate measures only until when the bulb is 70% as powerful as when originally put in place.  That means there could potentially be additional usable hours beyond the 25-50k hours.  At this rate, although not the green thing to do, a light bulb could run for over 5 years straight.  Also, these bulbs do not produce much heat which is an indicator of energy going toward light rather than heat.  The main drawback is cost.  These bulbs are more expensive than either CFL or incandescent, but might actually be cheaper in the long run.  I have also read that these bulbs do not light quite the same as the other bulbs and possibly provide less ambient light.

I summary, LED light bulbs are the best for the environment if you can afford them.  CFL Light bulbs are a great alternative and reasonably priced.  Stay away from the incandescent light bulbs.  Let me know any tips or info you have in the comment area below.