Word: grid
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Thanks in part to a new tax credit put into place by Congress in October, owning your own wind turbine could be the next green trend. While it's true that wind power has taken off in the U.S. - adding more in new capacity to the electrical grid last year than any other power source - most of that increase comes from utility wind farms, vast fields of turbines more than 300 ft. (90 m) tall. For homeowners seeking renewable-energy sources, however, better-known solar power has always dominated. Home solar power currently generates 12 times as much energy...
...like fiberglass insulation. According to Hendricks, there are companies ready to build wind farms in the Midwest and solar farms in the Southwest if they can be guaranteed that there will be a market for their products even if oil prices drop. • Construction of a new "smart" electric grid to deliver the power generated by wind, solar and geothermal plants in rural areas to the major population centers. This would be a down payment on the $400 billion over 10 years that Al Gore has estimated the new grid will ultimately cost - although, Gore says, the savings in energy...
Living "off the grid" is usually the choice of the hardened survivalist, the mountain man and perhaps the odd fugitive running from bounty hunters. But more and more Americans are now opting to disconnect from the grid - i.e., government, electric and other utility services - which delivers increasingly expensive fossil-fuel-based power and is, as millions in the Northeast learned during the 2003 blackout, anything but infallible. In 2006, Home Power magazine estimated that more than 180,000 U.S. homes were supplying their own power. "Some people want to minimize their impact on the environment," says Dave Black, a disaster...
...going off the grid isn't as simple as unplugging your television. The grid isn't just electricity but water, heat, waste management - even your cable signal. And then there's the gas that powers your car, the government-funded roads you drive on and the air in which you fly. That's where Black comes in. He has just written a book called Living Off the Grid, a practical guide to weaning yourself off the electrical milk of modern life. To Black, the benefits of going gridless aren't just about the environment - though with electricity responsible for about...
Conservation: The average American family uses 10,000 or so kilowatt-hours of electricity a year; quitting that grid cold-turkey can seem pretty daunting. That's why Black's first three words of advice are conserve, conserve, conserve. Most of us waste electricity in a hundred ways, both small (leaving our appliances plugged in and drawing a subtle charge) and large (holding on to energy-wasting appliances and lightbulbs). Reduce that waste by purchasing more-efficient appliances and tightening up insulation to avoid heat loss from your home, and you're already decreasing your dependence on the grid. "Those...