Color Changing Roof Tiles Absorb Heat In Winter, Reflects In Summer

What colors? Well, your basic power colors of course, black and white. Or to make your art teacher cringe – black and white makes green.

Black surfaces absorb the sun’s heat very efficiently, producing hot surfaces. In the wintertime, that can be a good thing: A dark roof heats up in the sun and helps reduce your heating bill. But in summertime, it’s definitely a bad thing: Your house gets even hotter, and your air conditioning has to work harder. In most places, the summertime penalty is greater than the wintertime gain, it turns out, so that’s why many people, including U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, strongly advocate switching to white roofs. (more…)

American Wind Projects

The U.S. wind industry is on its way to charting another record-shattering year of
growth. That capacity will generate over 60 billion kWh of electricity in 2009,
enough to serve over 5.5 million American homes and eliminating the burning of

* 30.4 million short tons of coal (enough to fill two 1,000-mile-long coal trains),
* 91 million barrels of oil per year, or
* 560 Bcf of natural gas (about 9% of the natural gas used for electricity generation)

Hull, Massachusetts – Offshore Wind Turbines
This resort town, population 11,000, plans to moor four 260-foot-tall turbines a (more…)

Research scientist at two different universities are on the same path to
developing an inexpensive process that will allow you to paint on or print
out your own solar cells. Imagine, a simple and inexpensive energy alternative
for households around the world.

Last year it was reported that researchers at New Jersey Institute of Technology
(NJIT) developed an inexpensive solar cell that can be painted or printed on
flexible plastic sheets. Lead researcher, Professor Somenath Mitra said, “The
process is simple, someday homeowners will even be able to print sheets of these
solar cells with inexpensive home-based inkjet printers. Consumers can then slap (more…)

Reusable bags reduce the amount of crude oil and natural gas used to
make plastic bags. They also reduce the amount of waste in landfills and
God forbid, our waterways and oceans.

Properly installed insulation can cut your energy bill up to 50%.

Green jeans! Denim insulation is made from recycled blue jeans and/or the
‘off cuts’ during production. Plus, it won’t harm you, unlike the floating
glass particles that fiberglass insulation creates. It also diverts over 200 (more…)