“Imagine a Saturday afternoon, and a guy going stupidly to the supermarket to buy a useless gadget,” Mr. Starck said. “He sees a really sexy object. ‘Oh my God, it’s beautiful. How much does it cost? Five hundred euros? That’s almost what I’d spend on a useless gadget.’ He brings the windmill home, goes to his roof, and 15 minutes later he sees it turning and producing energy. Wow!”

These turbines come in stainless steel, bright orange or a transparent plastic that will be almost invisible on your roof.

On sunny days, solar panels on the roof of Strizki’s detached garage generate more than enough electricity to power his home. The excess electricity powers a device inside the garage called an electrolyzer, which transforms a tank of water into its base elements – oxygen and hydrogen.

The final piece of the equation is “The New Jersey Genesis,” a hydrogen fuel-cell car Strizki helped design and now maintains for the New Jersey Department of Transportation. He can fill up the Genesis with hydrogen from his electrolyzer and drive it pollution free.

It’s so successful that Johnny Depp is using the technology to power his Caribbean Island.

The Department of Energy reports that 20% of America’s electricity can come from wind. Look at how big that wind turbine is. They are 410 feet tall and the blades span 148 feet in length. In one year, a 3-megawatt wind turbine like this produces as much energy as 12,000 barrels of imported oil.

Wind power already accounts for 48 billion kWh of electricity a year in the United States — enough to serve more than 4.5 million households. That is still only about 1% of current demand, but the potential of wind is much greater.

A 2005 Stanford University study found that there is enough wind power worldwide to satisfy global demand 7 times over — even if only 20% of wind power could be captured.

His map shows that the wind is blowing hard right in the middle of the country, where the red is. These are the prime areas for capturing the electricity.

I’m not sure how realistic this plan is. Some people say that we’ll have to switch over to a DC grid to transmit wind power over long distances. I’m not sure this can be accomplished in the 10 years he’s outlining. Still, it does have some interesting statistics on that site.

So what is this stuff? Sunlight speeds 93,000,000 miles to the earth in approximately 8 minutes at 186,282 miles per second! Energy can be measured in kilowatt-hours. 1 kilowatt = 1000 watts or the amount of electicity it takes to burn ten 100 watt light blubs for an hour.

In 2006, the average monthly residential electricity consumption was 920 kilowatthours. About 30% of our total energy consumption is used to heat water. Refrigerators are the appliance that consumes the most electricity (14%), followed by lighting (9%).

You can use the sun to dry cloths just with a cloths pin. This is a form of solar energy. Usually, when people talk about solar power, they mean using the sun for electricity production and for heating of water. Solar energy can also be used to heat swimming pools, power cars, attic fans, calculators and other small appliances. It produces lighting for indoors or outdoors. You can even cook food with solar energy.

• If every American household replaced one of its incandescent light bulbs with a compact fluorescent bulb, it would save the same amount of energy as a large nuclear power plant produces in a year.
• You can save 10 percent or more on your energy bill by reducing the air leaks in your home.
• By strategically placing trees, shrubs, and other landscape structures to block the wind and provide shade, residents can reduce the energy needed to keep their homes comfortable during heating and cooling seasons.
• Only 10 percent of the energy consumed by an incandescent bulb produces light; the remainder is given off as heat. Technologies developed during the last 10 years with fluorescent lighting can help cut lighting costs 30 to 60 percent while enhancing light quality and reducing environmental impacts. And LED lights are about to even beat that.
• Recycling an aluminum can saves 95 percent of the energy required to produce a replacement aluminum from bauxite.

Souce eia.doe.gov