By 2010, appliances in standby mode will be responsible for 20% of an average household utility bill.

If every U.S. household replaced its TVs, VCR/DVD player and phones with ENERGY STAR models, we would save 25 billion pounds of greenhouse gas emissions a year.

To save energy and money, install compact fluorescent lightbulbs in the most frequently used lights in your house: the kitchen ceiling lights, family room lamps and outdoor lights.

If every American household used energy-efficient lights in those places, we would save close to $8 billion each year in energy costs. Find CFL bulbs at Circuit City stores.

—U.S. Department of Energy

Earth Day is coming on Tuesday April 22 2008.  It gives us all a good excuse to analyze what we’re doing to leave a smaller carbon footprint. Here are some tips that should help you make everyday Earth Day.

Practical Earth Day Projects and Tips

Methane heats the planet 20 times more than carbon dioxide. A ruminant animal, an animal that digests it’s food many times, creates methane when it digests food in its rumen, the first stomach in a ruminant animal that acts as a holding chamber for food.

The rumen contains over 400 microbes that break down the food as it enters and some of the microbes specialize in producing methane. The key may be to just get rid of these particular microbes and replace them with ones that won’t produce methane.

Scientists at AgResearch in New Zealand are working on a solution. New Zealand is expecting a surge in it’s livestock demand in the coming years due to the increased need for meat and dairy products in China and the replacement of grazing land for ruminants in the US by bio-fuel crops.

Google is planning on being carbon neutral by the end of 2007 by becoming more efficient, using renewable energy sources and buying carbon offsets for what they can’t effectively reduce.

Their long term goal is not to rely on the carbon offsets but instead use them to start making a difference right away while they develop the programs that will create a smaller footprint in the long run.

They have already started some programs such as the Climate Savers Computing, a project whose aim is to improve computer efficiency standards. Climate Saver Computing’s goal is to redcue computer power consumption by 50% by the year 2010.

“Believe it or not, the average desktop PC wastes nearly half the power delivered to it. Half! This wasted electricity unnecessarily increases the cost of powering a computer, and it also increases the emission of greenhouse gases.” — ClimateSaversComputing.org

Google also wants to raise awarness of others so they have launched tools such as Google Transit which aids people in finding public transit.

Google launches an initiative gear towards electric cars using solar energy and selling their excess power back to the local grid.

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