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This website was created to help you slash your electricity bill by 80% or even eliminate it completely! With the ever increasing costs of living, there is no better time than right now to stop throwing money out the window and start generating your own electricity. Click Here!

What better way to save the world than to start in your own back yard? That's what Doug Rempel is doing - one SIP at a time. Doug is currently building an entirely energy efficient home next to Lillooet Lake, in Pemberton, B.C. The home is "off the grid" which means everything, from the solar insulation panels (SIPS) to the architecture of the home - with window levels and patio ledges based on sun path charts - is created to heat and cool in the most natural way possible. There is no hydro power or natural gas. "Energy-efficiency is a career as well as a passion of mine," says Doug.

Energy independence is still only a hypothetical goal for the U.S., but the owner of a tiny island off the coast of Connecticut says he has already achieved that feat and is offering his work as a model. Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway and numerous medical devices, jokingly refers to his North Dumpling Island as an independent nation and himself as Lord Dumpling. Kamen claims to have his own currency and offers visas to visitors to the tiny island a few miles from Mystic, where he is the only resident.

Enbridge Inc., its wholly-owned utility, Enbridge Gas Distribution Inc., and FuelCell Energy Inc. have announced the opening of the world's first Direct Fuel Cell - Energy Recovery GenerationTM (DFC-ERGTM) power plant. The ribbon-cutting ceremony took place at Enbridge Gas Distribution's Toronto headquarters. The plant, which produces 2.2 megawatts of environmentally preferred, ultra-clean electricity, or enough power for approximately 1,700 residences, is also the first multi-megawatt commercial fuel cell to operate in Canada.

WorldChanging has a brief post pointing to a symposium on urban life after oil - Re-Imagining Cities: Urban Design After the Age of Oil. A number of great journalists were covering last weekend's Re-Imagining Cities: Urban Design After the Age of Oil symposium in Philadelphia. The University of Pennsylvania School of Design and Penn Institute for Urban Research hosted this conference, which was organized with support from the Rockefeller Foundation to address the need to re-imagine and rethink how cities are designed and organized in a future without oil. Our own Alex Steffen gave a mainstage talk at the international event, which featured a number of thinkers whose work we've written about before here, like Bull Dunster, Elizabeth Kolbert, Robert Socolow, Andy Revkin, William J. Mitchell, David Orr, Neal Pierce, Bill Rees, Thomas Campanella, Harrison Fraker, and ARUP's Sir Peter Head. From brief recaps of plenaries and workshops to lengthier discussions of the theories presented (and their presenters), the pieces posted to the Next American City liveblog offer a taste of what was seen and heard at this innovative gathering of great minds.

In 2000 a Saudi oil geologist named Sadad I. Al Husseini made a startling discovery. Husseini, then head of exploration and production for the state-owned oil company, Saudi Aramco, had long been skeptical of the oil industry's upbeat forecasts for future production. Since the mid-1990s he had been studying data from the 250 or so major oil fields that produce most of the world's oil. He looked at how much crude remained in each one and how rapidly it was being depleted, then added all the new fields that oil companies hoped to bring on line in coming decades. When he tallied the numbers, Husseini says he realized that many oil experts "were either misreading the global reserves and oil-production data or obfuscating it."

LONDON: The government opened a major new phase on Wednesday in its drive for renewable energy, calling for bids to build up to 25 gigawatts of offshore wind turbines, triple the amount in the pipeline. The announcement by the government agency, the Crown Estate, which owns the seabed surrounding the country was welcomed by British Wind Energy Association chairman Adam Bruce as "impressively bold."

The UK government's renewables consultation called for a green revolution in energy. In doing so, it created a perfect tabloid rod for its own back. The proposed cost-to-consumer calculated by the Department of Business were based on the vanishingly unlikely prospect of an oil price as low as $70 a barrel in 2020. Expected additions to UK energy bills, at that oil price, would be 10-13% for electricity and 18-37% for gas, the government said.

An unusual combination of economic and environmental forces have created a "perfect storm" that could help geothermal shed its back-seat status to its renewable cousins wind and solar energy, experts said at an international conference. One after another, state and federal regulators, oil company executives, investor-owned utility officials and private developers on Monday recited the conditions in play to an overflow crowd of more than 1,000.

As utility costs mount ever higher, Americans now have real options to take home energy matters into their own hands with "green" systems that can pay for themselves in as little as a few years. Among the choices: wind, solar, geothermal and a "microhydro" option that is potentially cheaper than a year's tuition at many state colleges.

Today the Department of Energy (DOE) announced the award of 16 new Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) Energy Savings Performance Contracts (ESPCs) that could result in up to $80 billion in energy efficiency, renewable energy, and water conservation projects at federally-owned buildings and facilities. ESPCs help to meet the federal government's energy efficiency, water conservation, and renewable energy goals. The federal government is the largest single user of energy in the United States and these awards demonstrate a commitment to sound government stewardship by recognizing efforts to save energy, reduce federal energy costs, cut greenhouse gas emissions, bring more cutting-edge technologies to use, strengthen national security, and create a stronger economy.

If you have ever wished to stop wasting money on your electrical bill, help the global economy and save the Earth, then you've arrived at the right page. HomeMadeEnergy.org is the website created to help you slash your electricity bill by 80% or even eliminate it completely! With the ever increasing costs of living, there is no better time than right now to stop throwing money out the window and start generating your own electricity.

The Age recently had an article on the emerging practice of "guerilla gardening", taking a look at the "Gardening guerillas in our midst". This concept seems to have steadily increased in popularity in recent years (admittedly from a very low base) as the permaculture movement's ideas have been propagated through the community. Unlike the usual approach taken when trying to grow food in the suburbs - converting spare land on your own property (as discussed by aeldric previously and, more recently, in Jeff Vail's series on A Resilient Suburbia) - guerilla gardening involves cultivating any spare patch of urban land that isn't being used for another purpose, which could provide a substantial addition to the food growing potential of suburbia.

Renewable Energy World has an article on the state of play in the ocean energy market - Harnessing the Tides: Marine Power Update 2009 One hundred and forty-one years ago, the relentless sea off Scotland's coast inspired the following observation from native son and author George MacDonald. "I climbed the heights above the village, and looked abroad over the Atlantic. What a waste of aimless tossing to and fro! Gray mist above, full of falling rain; gray, wrathful waters underneath, foaming and bursting as billow broke upon billow…they burst on the rocks at the end of it, and rushed in shattered spouts and clouds of spray far into the air over their heads. "Will the time ever come," I thought, when man shall be able to store up even this force for his own ends? Who can tell?"

TreeHugger has a post on the large volume of offshore wind power projects planned for Scotland - 6.4 Gigawatts of Offshore Wind Farms Slated for Scotland. A couple months back it was announced that the UK's Crown Estate would be helping out with financing pre-construction costs for offshore wind farms . Now comes word that The Crown Estate-which owns development rights in UK waters out to 200 miles-has offered exclusive agreements to nine companies for the development of offshore wind farms in Scottish waters totaling more than 6 GW of power. There are 10 plans on the table under these agreements: The largest is the Argyll Array at 1,500 MW, to be developed by Scottish Power Renewables. Airtricity Holdings has a sites amounting to 2,678 MW (Kintyre, 378 MW; Islay, 680 MW; Beatrice 920 MW; Bell Rock 700 MW). Inch Cape will see 905 MW of wind power developed by NPower Renewables. Fred Olsen Renewables will develop 415 MW at the Forth Array.

For every creature a home is an important factor. It provides protection from predators and affords shelter from the elements. Birds, in particular, devote considerable time to creating a suitable abode. The vast majority build their own nests, although there are some exceptions. For example, some owls use a hollow in a tree , and most falcons and nightjars dispense with a nest altogether and lay their eggs on bare earth.

Can you explain to me and the readers why solar panels are so expensive? Why can we not get the cost of this energy down to US $0.15 per kWh while we're paying off the equipment? Why are we paying for future production capability today? It is like the current electricity providers are saying, "Well, your house will use 12,000 kWh this year so we want our $1,800 now" or worse "give us 20 years up front" as the solar industry does today! If the solar market really wants to see a green planet then I feel they need to get the green out their eyes! Can they not see that they can truly make every home owner self sufficient if they bring their costs in line. It seems as though this renewable energy game is for the wealthy. If I want my home to be totally self-sustaining, it would cost me $80,000! A: Ian, I am happy to respond to your question since I have spent my own money on both my net-zero-energy home and my zero-energy office building - so I am acutely aware of the costs.

The world is already embracing various recycling methods, but it is not enough. Every household, including yours and mine, must participate even in our own simple ways.

Car sharing has become an increasingly common concept today. What is it? Car sharing is the concept of sharing a vehicle rather than owning it outright. It is similar to carpooling, only you do not ride with other people in every case.

Nearly every store has a green shopping bag display now, right at the checkout lane. Many people bring their own however, and the green shopping bag industry is a wide open one to explore for the person, with the right skill set.