The students who participate in these events are working to send a two-fold message. They are trying to educate the public, to show them that a seemingly niche technology has the power to be a big boon for sustainable development, as well as to show them that green jobs are the way of the future.

This display of dwellings, set up right in the heart of our nation’s capitol is meant to get the attention of folks who drive themselves to work each morning, shutting their garage door, ready for a long individual commute in a vehicle that can hold seven. The message is for everyday people to see possibility.

However this year, the Decathlon was not held without its own bit of backlash towards the green community in the wake of a recently bankrupted solar company. The weather was also trying to work against the event, which opened to rainy, gloomy weather. But the students remained positive and the sun did indeed come out on the event. With it came the eco-conscious from near and far.

For self-proclaimed “greenies”, this is one of the events of the year. In addition to being solar powered, these homes are also carbon neutral. They contain energy saving appliances and the latest in efficiency technology. It is a great way to unveil the latest ideas and findings in the green engineering community. A vast array of technologies – some innovative, some downright strange – are put on display for the public to see and to be viewed for judging.

This event is just one of many that show off the bright minds of the future. As more college students are making a career in sustainable development and engineering, bigger and better ideas will be created, some that could possibly innovate new design techniques. This event is a great way to show the public just what is possible, as well as a great means for those of like-mind to get together and share their knowledge.

A common problem that I run into is that people think that it costs a lot of money to go green. In some cases this may be true, but there are a lot of small things we all can do to save a little energy. I’ve put together a list of things that cost under $30 that will save you energy.

1. Programmable Thermostat: Using a programmable thermostat can save you hundreds of dollars over the course of a year. The basic idea is to not heat or cool your home when you are not there. These can easily be purchased at your local hardware store and are fairly simple to install.

2. Caulk: It’s amazing what a $4 tube of caulk can do! Fill in all those leaky cracks around windows, doors and foundations and you can really cut down on your energy usage.

3. Furnace Filter: If your home is heated using a forced air furnace, than you need to replace your furnace filter on a regular basis. When they become clogged up this will cause your furnace to work harder, which uses more energy. Also choose your filter carefully, as a thicker filter may make your furnace work harder!

4. Power Strips: A lot of electronics such as DVD players and coffee makers are always using power when they are plugged in. By plugging your appliances into power strips you will easily be able to cut the power to these devices when they are not in use.

5. Window film: There are huge varieties of window filmthat you can use on your house hold windows. Some of these reflect sunlight keeping your home cooler. There is also the added bonus fewer UV rays fading your furniture!

6. Light Sensors: This one may seem a little unusual for home use, but think how many times we leave rooms with the lights on and get sidetracked. By having sensors installed the lights would simply turn off after no movement is detected for a certain period of time.

7. Timers: If you can plug it in, you can run it off a timer. Things like exterior lights and water heaters are great things to have on timers. Why keep lights running when they are not needed and why heat water when you are not home to use it.

8. Low Flow Shower Heads: Low flow shower heads are designed to give you a great shower, but use less water in the process. This saves on water heating costs and pump costs.

9. Draft Stop: These are more helpful in colder climates, but a draft stop along the bottom of exterior doors can keep a lot of cold air out of your home. This can help reduce heating costs and also keep your feet warmer!

10. Blinds and Drapes: Blinds and Drapes are a great way to keep the hot sun and UV rays out in the summer and keep the warm air in during the winter. There are thousands of different designs, but to save some money, you can always make your own!

11. LED Christmas Lights: LED Christmas Lights not only use 80-90% less energy than standard lights, but they also last a lot longer. This keeps our electricity bills down and our landfills a little less crowded.

12.Wall Plate Insulators: All of the wall sockets and light switches in your home that are on outside walls can let cold air inside. By using insulators behind the plates, you will keep a little warmer this winter!

13.Blankets and Sweaters: You can keep the thermostat set a little lower in the winter by wearing sweaters and covering up with blankets. There really is no need to have your home temperature set high enough to be able to walk around in shorts and a t-shirt!

14.Insulating Pipes: By insulating your hot water pipes you can save water heating costs. You can also save yourself from burning yourself on hot pipes! Pipe insulation is easy enough to install that any home owner should be able to do it!

15. CFL light bulbs: While I am not a fan of CFL light bulbs because of the Mercury content, frailness, and short life span, they do save electricity. They are a far better choice than the old incandescent bulbs we have been using for 100 years.

Changing Microsoft XP power scheme settings determines whether or not power-saving CPU features are activated in a machine when idle.

All modern desktop CPU’s past the AMD Athlon XP and the Intel Pentium 4 (ie. AMD A64 & Intel Core and upwards) have some kind of speed-stepping feature built into them, which is utilised via Windows XP’s power management settings as per Orthogonal Thought’s blog.

What does this mean? Well, basically, if we all switch our desktop computer’s power scheme to ‘Laptop/Portable’, our computers will drop the cpu voltage and frequency when idle (provided the motherboard supports it, and most do), saving 30w (on average) – it’s like switching to an energy-saver lightbulb, essentially – and has absolutely no performance impact when not running idle.

Learn more: Intel SpeedStep, Windows XP, and confusing Power Profiles

It’s time to clear this up folks. Hopefully you already know that surfing with a black background (on your computer screen) will not always save energy. If not, let me explain why black backgrounds aren’t that green.

Black backgrounds can save some energy if you use a CRT screen (CRT screens are those huge and big screens). If you, like the majority, uses an LCD screen (the flat ones) a white background instead of a black will save energy.

LCD monitors are built with a light behind the screen that is always on. So when you show a white page you just let the light shine through the screen. If you show a black page on the other hand the LCD light is completely blocked and it requires more energy to shine through.

According to Google “displaying black may actually increase energy usage”.

Blackle and SaveAndSearch are two of a few sites that is based on the idea that surfing with a black background on websites will save energy and therefore be good for the environment. But unfortunately surfing black isn’t really that green.

If you are interested in saving energy and helping the environment there are better and more efficient ways than using black or white backgrounds when you surf or search the web.