Home & Garden...

There's a new green home resource in town via the Department of Energy. The new interactive site, offers a clickable home, which shows you how to make smarter greener changes to your home, or how to build smart green design choices into a new home project.

Example: Simply click on the little solar panel on the house roof. A box pops up that explains some of what solar can offer including extra resources. There's a pdf document about how to get your power from the sun and links to tax credits related to solar power. There are also two learn more sections. One goes into solar power in depth, covering any questions someone might have about solar. The other goes straight into how to purchase and use solar power.

It's a nice little resource because each tip gathers all relevant information a green home owner might need. Topics covered, besides solar, include:

• Solar thermal power
• Lighting options
• Fuel & hybrid cars
• Smart meter
• Air conditioning
• home appliances and tech (like TVs)

If you click to the next screen it takes you out of the house and into a clickable field where topics related to cleaner energy are covered.

• Smart electric grid
• Hydrogen
• Clean coal
• Zero energy home
• Biofuels
• And more

While personally, I don’t think you should make a government sanctioned site your only source of information about green home issues and energy use, this is an easy website to use if you’re new to all this. Just keep in mind that while a government site is a good jumping off point, you’ll want to research other view points; especially related to controversial topics like biofuel and grid.

Visit Energy.gov

[picture via energy.gov - clickable example]