Amory Lovins, who won a MacArthur Genius grant back in 1993 (and an Eco-Hero Award just right now), has been living in a house he built since 1983. It looks like a very nice and comfy house, especially when you consider that, despite living 7,000 feet up in the Rocky Mountains (where it gets pretty dang cold), he pays $0 a year on his heating. Not only that, but his house actually generates more electricity than he needs — so he sells the surplus energy to the power company for some extra cash. Here are three ways to cut your electric bill like crazy.

CLICK HERE TO SEE AN INFORMATIVE YET FUN YET NEAT VIDEO OF HIS HOUSE

Insulate, Insulate, Insulate

His secret (one of them) is that he designed his house to be very well insulated. His walls are 16 inches thick, and his large super-insulated windows (made with special glass that insulates as well as 14 normal panes of glass) mean that his house can retain heat quite well.

Passive and Active Solar Heating

Lovins’ house is heated in two main ways: both from sun-rays passing through his many windows, or by means of Amory’s solar panels, which supply his house with more energy than it even uses.

Energy-Efficient Appliances

Much of Lovins’ house is naturally lit by the sun. Besides that, motion-detector lights and energy-efficient bulbs help to cut down on electricity use. His fridge is thickly-insulated, which reduces its energy consumption by quite a lot. His dryer is solar powered, and looks like it uses no electricity at all (watch the video to see how).

Amory Lovins’ home took some extra thought to design and build. It also cost a little bit extra ($6,000). But by cutting his power bill to zero, the extra planning and money spent were easily worth it. If more and more contractors start building this way, you could kiss our “oil prices” and “energy crisis” problems good-bye.

Thankee to Sam for telling me about this homey

Last night, me and Tiff were heading home after getting swole at the gym, when much to my surprise a Smart Car drove by. I managed to get an amazing, high-quality photograph of it as it sped by.

That’s actually how it looked; it is so eco-friendly that it was warping space-time (that’s why the lights look weird, they are being bent). Stephen Hawkings explains this phenomenon in detail in A Briefer History of Time, available at your local public library.

Now, if only I could find this in Raleigh:

There’s a new craze that’s sweeping the nation. Tiny houses. Many of them even smaller than this converted bus. Instead of living in a big, energy-consuming, resource-using McMansion, some people have chosen to live in small houses of about 100 square feet. It might sound crazy, but after looking at pictures and video of them, a tiny house doesn’t sound too bad.

Martin House-To-Go has finished their 2008 tiny house model, and they call it Fresh Start. At $29,900, it only costs as much as a nice car, but offers all the modern comforts of home. Their tiny house includes these following features:

• 11′ high ceilings!
• solid bamboo floors!
• no toxic, gas-emitting materials used in construction

Anyhoo, it’s worth taking a look at their galleries. Marvelous, they are.

Moving on, we find Jay Shafer of Tumbleweed. He’s been building (and living in) tiny homes since 1997. Most of his tiny houses are about 100 square feet. He claims that the reason he started living in small houses is because he hates sweeping and vacuuming big houses. Also, since they use less natural resources (both in construction and in upkeep). Without further ado, I present Jay Shafer’s guided tour of his tiny house:

One day I might have to take the plunge and live in a mini-house. They look cool, are cheap, and are environmentally responsible. What more could ye ask for?Thanks to Tiff for telling me about this here thing.

Sometimes tea just isn’t fancy enough. Sometimes it needs a little kick of class. That is where Steeped in Style Gourmet tea comes in.

Order yo’self a free sample of gourmet tea today. Because sometimes, non-gourmet tea just ain’t gonna cut it.

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Moving right along, we have a special offer for free organic garlic gold. What is garlic gold? Turns out it is toasted organic garlic bits infused with organic olive oil. I recommend using it as a breath mint.

The Iraq War. Many issues of this war have already been discussed, but I ask you: what of the environmental impact of the war in Iraq? The Onion steps up to the plate and delivers a home-run with this spot-on news feature.

In The Know: How Can We Make The War In Iraq More Eco-Friendly?I can’t believed no one mentioned bombing Iraq with saplings in the hope that they would take root and turn this desert into a thriving, forested land.

Look at them polar bears. Just look at them. Dang 🙁

How can you help them out, you might ask? Welp, the least you can do is to help spread the word about energy conservation by emailing the Natural Resources Defense Council and requesting some free “Unplug for Polar Bears” and “Turn Off Global Warming” stickers for chargers and light switches. Email them at polarbearsosinfo@nrdc.org, and por favor give them your mailing address and how many sets of stickers you need (each set contains six stickers, 3 each of “Unplug for Polar Bears” and “Turn Off Global Warming”). “Supplies are limited so please keep your order to two sets, unless you have a special need for schools or institutions.”

If for some reason you think you’re better than the rest of us, and feel you can somehow do more than just ordering free polar bear stickers, then you can find out other ways to curb global warming rotch here. So please, act now. If not for yourself, then for the baby polar bears.

Look above. That used to be a yellow cheese school bus! Man, when I first saw this, I was too interested. I read all the steps, and looked at all the pictures of what Jake Von Slatt did. What he did was buy a cheap school bus (a little more than $2,000) and transform it into a beautiful, homemade RV. I like his homemade RV for a couple reasons:

1. He did it cheaply. The bus cost about $2,000, he did most of the work himself (or with his friends), and he got a LOT from the dump, craigslist, or freecycle.
2. He reused a lot of materials, thereby creating his RV in a very “green” way (reused bus, materials from dump, reused mess off websites).
3. You can see the process of the bus’s conversion. Seeing all the steps it takes is really interesting, and makes me want to (one day) attempt something like this. It’s really cool, so por favor take a look at it.

Anyhoo, enough with my thoughts. Enjoy this video of Von Slatt giving you a tour of his homemade RV that came from a lil’ ol’ cheese bus.