America's Biggest Energy Thieves

vAmpere: JCPB's own super villain

Every day we walk past energy vampires, sucking away on our power supply, and most of us don't even know it. Cars left running or huge buildings with their lights glowing all night are obvious wasteful consumers of energy, but many times it is actually smaller and less noticeable power consumers that are - when aggregated across hundreds of millions of homes and offices - adding significant strain onto the US power production and transmission system at a time when blackouts are creating real concerns for companies relying on constant power supply.

Read more: http://energy.aol.com/2012/09/17/americas-biggest-energy-thieves/#photo-1

Preparing Your Home for Winter

The fall Equinox is a good time of year to start thinking about preparing your home for winter, because as temperatures begin to dip, your home will require maintenance to keep it in tip-top shape through the winter.
Autumn is invariably a prelude to falling winter temperatures, regardless of where you live. It might rain or snow or, as David Letterman says, "Fall is my favorite season in Los Angeles, watching the birds change color and fall from the trees."

Did you know there is only one state in the United States where the temperatures have never dipped below zero? Give up? It's Hawaii.

Here are ten tips to help you prepare your home for winter:

Read full article: http://homebuying.about.com/od/buyingahome/qt/92607_WinterHom.htm

ORNL roof-and-attic system keeps houses cool in summer, warm in winter

Heating and cooling a house are two of the biggest ongoing costs for homeowners and are responsible for the bulk of the average household’s energy consumption. A new kind of roof-and-attic system field tested at the DoE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) improves the efficiency of both winter heating and summer cooling. Importantly, the new system can be retrofitted to most existing roofs.

Read More: http://www.gizmag.com/ornl-roof-and-attic-system/24083/