While I don't read many magazines or newspapers, I read tons of books. Some of them I wind up keeping and rereading, but many get consigned to the local neighborhood garage sale. And those that don't get "recycled" to someone else get sent to our county recycling facility (along with all of our newspapers and magazines).

While recycling is great, I've often wondered if there wasn't a better way. While I love the feel of a book in my hands, it's always bothered me that we create so much - newspapers and magazines, especially - that is destined to be only read once before being discarded.

But it looks like the folks at Amazon.com may have come up with a solution: the Kindle wireless reading device. While it's pretty pricey, my wife and I believe they have enough potential for "greenness" and tons of features for bookworms that we're going to take the plunge and buy two!

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In the second part of our series on home backup power, I'm going to review the generator we chose: the Aurora Generators AGI6800DE 6500 watt diesel backup generator.

This is an open-frame diesel generator rated at 5500 watts continuous power, with 6500 watts peak power (note: peak power is how much the generator can put out for short periods of time, such as when a refrigerator kicks on and needs more power during startup). However, the documentation indicates 6800 watts continuous and 7800 watts peak load, but I haven't been able to confirm at this point which is the real deal.

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One topic that doesn't necessarily fall into the realm of energy conservation is what I guess I'd call energy "preservation" - what you do when the grid power goes down and the lights go out. To this point, my family and I have just sat around in the dark using whatever candles or battery powered lights we had handy. But after a major power outage (some folks were out over two days) last winter that had us shivering and wondering if we'd have to abandon our home for a couple days, I decided that we wouldn't be in the same situation this year.

But, as I found out, not all home backup generators are created equal, and there are choices you can make that will influence how economically and ecologically friendly your backup generator will be.

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The United States has been accused for many years - rightly so, I'm sad to say - of being the world's biggest consumer of virtually everything, including several key ingredients to modern industrialized society: grain, beef, coal, steel, and oil.

But you know what? We don't have to take the rap anymore for hogging everything! There's a new kid on the block who's actually been around a very long time and who's now the leading consumer of all of those key materials (except for oil): China. Or, more accurately, the People's Republic of China).

Why should you care? Because China's catching up to us in its demand for oil, and if you think you have worries about prices at the gas pump now, just you wait!

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Of all the cool and interesting things I've learned in my adventure in conservation that began with reading Lester Brown's Plan B 2.0, the one that has really popped my eyeballs out the most so far is radiant barriers. Once you learn about what radiant barriers are and what they can do, I promise you that you will never look at a house the same way again.

Without putting too fine a point on it, after what I've read on this incredible application of basic physics, NO home should be built without incorporating this technology. Why? Simple: it's a huge energy saver that can also save you tons of money in heating and cooling your home!

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One of the things a lot of folks wonder when they look at their electric bill is, "Where the heck is all my money going?" Which appliances are using more than they should, or just more than you think they do? How can you tell?

It's easy now with the Kill-a-Watt meter by P3 International. This thing only costs about $24, but could save you some serious money by pointing out the electricity hogs in your house. This is also an extremely valuable tool for anyone trying to figure out the wattage requirements for a backup generator.

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Now that it's been a few months since I got the "green" bug, I thought I'd give you an update on what's happened with our electric bill since we replaced our incandescent lights with compact fluorescent lights and started using radiant panel heaters instead of our heat pump to heat our upstairs.

Not to put too fine a point on it, we've saved almost $300 on our electric bills just in the last three months!

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Unless you've been hiding under a rock, you've probably at least heard about "biofuels," particularly biodiesel and ethanol. These fuels have two particular benefits over petroleum-based fuels: they're cleaner-burning with greatly reduced greenhouse gas emissions, and they're made from renewable sources like corn, grain, sugarcane, and (in the case of biodiesel) things like peanuts, canola, and other plants that yield vegetable oil.

That's all well and good. But like with many things in our world, changing one thing in our economy or environment almost always has some sort of ripple effect. In the case of biofuels, I think we really need to stop and think: is it really a good idea to be putting our food crops into our gas tanks?

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I've read a lot of horror stories by Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Robert McCammon, and others. Aside from sci-fi, that's my favorite genre of books. But I have to say, my friend, that none of them were as frightening as reading Mercury Falling and the follow-up reading I've done on coal power plants.

Why should you care? Well, pollution from coal power plants has been tied to the premature deaths of almost 30,000 people, nearly 40,000 non-fatal heart-attacks, and thousands of emergency calls and hospital stays related to respiratory and cardiac problems every year.

On top of that, mercury from coal is no doubt contributing to the epidemic of autism and other behavioral problems in children that are direct results of mercury poisoning. So, how many billions of dollars is that all costing us every year?

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This weekend I struck a blow for renewable energy with a vote from my wallet: I shifted over to an electricity provider that offers a one-hundred percent certified wind energy program. If you're one of the millions of electricity customers who feels like a slave to the international energy markets, you may have alternatives available. You just have to look!

One of the very few benefits of deregulating the power industry is that more and more utilities have at least limited competition for who actually provides the electricity (and gas) that you use.

Your utility company is still responsible for maintaining the physical electric grid all the way up to your house, and that part is still regulated. But in many areas you don't have to actually buy those little electrons from the company that maintains your wires.

Now, in shopping around for electricity, you could take the easy way out and just look for the cheapest option. Or - and what I hope you'll do - you can really do the world some good by shopping for what's often called a "green power" program.

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