We're all being bombarded with doomsday messages these days about the polar ice cap and the poor bee colonies. More folks are buying reusable grocery bags, conserving fuel and making some smaller and smarter decisions. Researching renewable energy technology like solar electric, wind turbines and geo-thermal can get very overwhelming if you aren't an engineer. How the heck do you really start going green?

The first things to do are really super simple. And anyone in the solar power or wind turbine business should tell you the same thing - conserve. Why this first step? Because in order to ultimately invest in an alternative energy technology, you need to know how much power you actually need. If you just slap a solar electric system on your house before you make your house efficient, you are just perpetuating the usage and need for too much power.

Step One:
Turn stuff off! Turn off lights and AC when you aren't using it directly. Plug those pesky silent energy drainers into a power strip and turn the strip off at night. Replace whichever bulbs you can with Compact Fluorescent. Wait until your old incandescent bulbs burn out and replace old technology with new. As your old appliances fail, or when you have the resources, replace them with new, Energy Saver models.

If you really want to get serious on evaluating your power usage, you can also grab a power meter (like a Kill-A-Watt), which is a gadget you plug into the wall, and then you plug your appliance into the Kill-O-Watt. Leave your appliance plugged in for a couple of weeks and you can figure out how much you are paying per billing cycle per appliance. This can help you quickly find out which of your existing or old appliances are the worst energy hogs - helping you to make smarter decisions about what to replace first!

Step Two:
Once you have reduced your power consumption and you've worked through replacing appliances and light bulbs, look at the construction of your home. Do you have old leaky windows? How thick is your insulation? Do you have conifers planted on your home's windward side and deciduous trees planted on the southerly side? Do you have a solar powered attic fan helping to vent the hot air from your attic in the summer to keep your AC from working so hard?

Make sure your home isn't leaky and can hold heat in the winter and stay cooler in the summer. By making your home "tighter" you'll need less energy to modulate the interior temperature and you'll all me more comfortable.

Step Three:
Now you can consider the most cost effective alternative energy technology in terms of getting a return on your investment. Solar thermal is the way to go! Whether you want to look at installing a solar air heater as a supplemental heat source for 700 square feet of your home, or a solar water heater to remove heating water from your oil or natural gas heating needs, these systems are not only comparable in price with traditional technologies, but also will yield a return on your investment within a few years!

At the end of the day, these three steps will get you well on your way to being less energy consumptive and less dependent on fossil fuels. Going green, unless you have a lot of money to invest, is something that takes time so treat it that way. Build up gradually and then you'll know when it's time to really explore introducing solar panels, solar electric systems, wind electric or even hydro electric power.