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There are all sorts of tech geeks working at CNET. I'm an energy geek, both at home and at work.

So how do you do the "green building" thing? Well, if you're wealthy enough to hire a sustainability architect, you have a new home built with bamboo flooring and solar panels (and lots of closet space.)

Click on this image for a photo gallery of assorted green home retrofits, including a pellet stove.

(Credit: Martin LaMonica/CNET Networks)

For all the rest of us, I've assembled a photo gallery on ways to "green" your lifestyle using some examples from my home. For a very thorough run-down of resources, check out "How to green your life" from CNET's Elsa Wenzel.

Biomass, baby
Perhaps the most unusual thing I did was have a pellet stove installed last year. It's my attempt to fuel my home with a domestic, renewable fuel: compressed sawdust.

Overall, it's great. It burns hot enough to heat the downstairs of our small home and a blazing fire is just a nice thing to have in your living room.

Is it green? Yes, because it's made from a byproduct of wood mills. If the wood is harvested sustainably, then it's renewable. The Pellet Fuels Institute, an industry group, claims that burning pellets is "carbon neutral" since trees capture the carbon dioxide from burning the fuel, but that's not something I've been able to verify independently.

Unlike old-fashioned wood stoves, they don't give off a lot of smoke, which I'd rather not breathe.

I think the biggest concern facing pellet stove owners--and the industry as a whole--is availability of fuel. A few years ago, there was a shortage that pushed up prices and made it hard to find fuel during the winter.

That's being addressed because there are more mills being constructed to boost production, said Don Kaiser, the executive director of the Pellet Fuels Institute, which is lobbying for renewable energy tax rebates on pellet stove purchases.

Even without a rebate, the economics on purchasing a stove look pretty good, at least for me and my New England home. A back-of-the-envelope calculation I did showed that our overall heating bills aren't going down dramatically when all costs are included.

But we did notice something remarkable when we looked at our older bills: natural gas heating prices have shot up, nearly doubling in the nine years I've lived in my home. So with an alternate heat source, I've got a hedge against rising, or volatile, fossil fuel prices.

Of course, you need storage space for your fuel. And if you have a bad back, don't bother. You need to lug 40-pound bags around to feed the stove as often as once a day.

Efficiency
Alternative energy sources aside, efficiency is really the name of the game in the home.

Experts refer to energy efficiency as an energy "source" all its own that should have the same incentives that renewable sources like solar and wind have. Still, there are some tax incentives for doing the basics like insulation in the attic.

Click here to see all of News.com's Earth Day 2008 stories, photo galleries, and more.

Smart grid technology is starting to creep out into the power grid. For consumers, the most visible result will be some sort of in-home display that shows the cost of energy at a given time during the day.

Depending on the utility energy-efficiency program, consumers can choose to dial down their consumption themselves or have the utility propose an action as it did in a yearlong GridWise trial in the Seattle area. For example, the utility could turn the gas off from a dryer for a few minutes.

Overall, the GridWise trial found that it lowered consumers' energy costs by about 10 percent and took the strain off the grid during peak times, which could eliminate the need to build new power plants.

For starters, people can use smart power strips that cut down on the "vampire load" that most electronics pull even when they are idle.

For a more all-encompassing view on green retrofits, Elsa's piece offers many places to get more information. Also, last fall, I hosted an Ask the Editors forum on green buildings where many topics were discussed.

Another recent case study is Bill Nye (the Science Guy), who opened his 1939 home to the New York Times Magazine and offered his prescription for green living with style.

Clothes dryers are the second biggest hog of household energy, according to the Department of Energy. Most are so similar in terms of power hunger that the Energy Star label of efficient appliances doesn't even mark dryers.

By this fall, however, consumers could enjoy faster, greener, and safer clothes dryers that draw half the power of conventional models, according to Hydromatic Technologies Corporation.

With the Dryer Miser installed, the dryer on the right demands less energy.

(Credit: Hydromatic Technologies Corporation)

Its Dryer Miser technology would dry garments 41 percent more quickly without shrinking as much or stinking them up with the odor of burnt lint, said Michael Brown, the inventor and company president.

He plans to sell the Dryer Miser in the fall as a $300 retrofit kit that he says could be added to existing dryers in 20 minutes by a technician. Up to 40 percent of dryers from Whirlpool, the top brand in the market, as well as others, could be converted.

The company is also working with a large European appliance manufacturer to integrate the technology into a scratch-built dryer model.

The Dryer Miser is installed on the dryer to the left.

(Credit: Hydromatic Technologies Corporation)

Liquid is the key ingredient to drying clothes more quickly, according to Brown.

"We used NASA and MIT engineers to prove the technology is an oxymoron and (that) I'm not a moron," said Brown.

His copper and aluminum system heats a fluid, which mixes with air that is then blown hot into the clothing drum. Each unit would use about three cups of a nontoxic, hydrocarbon-based oil. Unlike natural gas dryers, no carbon dioxide would be produced.

Nor would the noncombustible system, which could be plugged into 110-volt outlets, create a fire hazard, Brown said. Conventional dryers may reach 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit in order to raise the tumbler temperature up to 155 degrees. They are blamed for 15,000 household fires counted each year by the Consumer Safety Product Commission.

The Dryer Miser also would be more effective than relatively efficient heat pump or condensing dryers in Europe and Asia, according to Brown. In those markets, dryers are about half the size as those in the United States.

Brown, a heating and air conditioning technician, invented the device in 2004 in his garage in Kissimmee, Fla. He got the idea from working with boilers. So far he says he has raised $3 million privately and has turned down offers of up to $100 million from venture capitalists.

He hopes his work will lead to the first Energy Star-rated clothes dryers. To that end, Brown plans to submit a rule-making request to the Department of Energy. Energy Star recently raised its energy efficiency requirements for clothes washers.

Brown is also working on an off-grid, solar-powered dryer that would draw power in the daytime from rooftop photovoltaic panels.

The Dryer Miser kit is being demonstrated this week at the International Builders' Show in Orlando. A state utility there has expressed interest in offering rebates for customers who use the system.

Utilities elsewhere are exploring smart meters and networking tools to help people conserve energy. CenterPoint Energy in Texas, for one, is testing a Zigbee networking module that would turn off dryers during peak load times.

Refrigerators and dryers are the hungriest of all household appliances, which make up one-fifth of energy consumption, according to the government's Energy Information Administration. A washer and dryer are found in 9 of 10 single-family American homes.

On a related note, a movement is afoot among green-leaning consumers who are ditching dryers in favor of the clothesline. Members of Project Laundry List assemble online to fight for the right to dry clothes outside without the interference of local NIMBY laws.

SAN FRANCISCO--Housework is a lot more fun with a battle axe and a couple of dwarves.

Chore Wars, a game shown off by noted game developer Jane McGonigal at the Web 2.0 Summit recently, gives users "experience" points for various household chores. Collecting those points then lets you advance your profile in the online game.

Jane McGonigal speaks at the Game Developers Conference held in San Francisco this past May.

(Credit: James Martin, CNET News.com)

Swiffer the floor twice a week and get 20 points for charm, that sort of thing. You can also play for virtual gold doubloons. These can be exchanged for rewards, inside your own circle of friends. Earn 200 doubloons and you can receive a get-out of-cleaning-the garage card. Or if you are the low scorer for a month, you can be dubbed a scapegoat and put up for adoption.

Naturally, most players concentrate on people you know. Who cares if some guy in Texas slew 200 yards of PVC pipe in putting together his new sprinkler system and got 1,000 doubloons. The bean bags in your guest room still need to be stacked. Still, you can get a sense of the value that other people put on certain tasks to get a sense of the value of your own.

There are different roles you can play--apprentice, dungeon master (DMs have full administrative power and get to wield the unstoppable cleansing power of Comet) and adventurer.

The idea behind all of this is to make real life more appealing. Virtual worlds are actually more appealing than reality to a growing segment of the population. The rules are easier to understand and the rewards are clean-cut. "Some people care more about their avatars than their real lives," McGonigal said. "We're seeing it a bit in the U.S. In Asia it is a really strong phenomenon."

There does seem to be an inherent danger of turning people into household pets. You're getting people to clean up for the equivalent of a milk bone. But, in the right context, you could see this making housework more fun.

(Credit: Brookstone)

With so many wireless headphones available, one might wonder why anyone would want something like the "TV Hear" remote speaker. Basically, it's a wireless "personal" speaker with a 30-foot range that lets you listen to the telly without disturbing a sleeping spouse or anyone else within earshot of average volumes.

But some people still like to hear things in the open air, and Brookstone says there are other uses for this speaker, such as listening to the TV while you "bounce from room to room--trying to cook dinner, for example, while catching the evening news." We're still dubious whether it's worth $75, but we've certainly seen less practical personal gadgets, so everything's relative.

(Credit: Gizoo)

Go ahead, take the kids to McDonald's to get their Happy Meal Robosapiens. You know you were going to have to make a trip there anyway, sooner or later. Besides, that'll give you another excuse to get a robot of your own soon--the "Spyke."

As noted when it was introduced last month, this spy bot made by France's Meccano is outfitted with a Webcam, Wi-Fi connection and Skype's latest VoIP software. And now, thanks to Uber-Review, we know its price and availability: 200 pounds in the U.K., or about $391, with an April 9 target release. We also learned a few more details, such as Spyke's handy habit of returning to its base station automatically when it needs recharging. Maybe it can teach our kids to do the same thing.

(Credit: GadgetCandy)

I'm female. I don't mind pink. In fact, I kind of like it. I wore a pink shirt the other day, and my iPod is housed in a hot pink iSkin. I wouldn't buy a pink RAZR (the quintessential example of a pink gadget) but if someone gave one to me along with a nice fat data plan, I'd take it. Basically, what I'm trying to say is that I'm not a pink-hater.

That being said, I see absolutely no reason for the existence of a baby-pink George Foreman grill, which GadgetCandy drew our attention to today. There are plenty of cool colors for a grill. Heck, if they made a turquoise Foreman, I'd consider buying it. But this slightly-darker-than-cotton-candy hue is just pukeworthy. It looks like a freaking Polly Pocket playset, except for the fact that anybody who's dumb enough to open it up and poke around inside will get a nasty third-degree burn.

If this grill ever sees success, I'm guessing that it'll be due to the small number of (delusional) women who insist on making everything in their kitchens pink, or to frat boys who think that it'd make a nice gag gift.

I've co-existed with housecats most of my life. In the same living space. The little darlings will awaken you at night when they want room service. Some needlessly kill salamanders or wild birds. We had had one angry tom who pooped on top of our piano. They'll sneak food from your plate if you leave the dining table. Pick fights with the neighborhood skunk or raccoon with the expected results. And they will always sleep on your pillow, leaving a free deposit of soft fur behind.

But none of that matters, or even moves the annoyance needle. Not when you compare it to cat sand and litter boxes. We thought we had evolved into modernity when we got one of those electric cat litter boxes that automatically scoops the poop into a plastic box. No, the stench, the chemical odors and the gently wafting ammonia, the sand itself nestled into shoes and cracks between tiles--all of that remained. And the sweet kitties would often prefer to insist you get up and open the door if their box didn't smell quite right.

Gone. Over. Finis. There's a green tech solution. No more toxic cat sand that can't be recycled and is death to modern plumbing. We've gone far beyond the use of shredded newspaper and other primitive attempts to cope with real kitty litter. Thanks to a brilliant woman in Oregon, we found the elusive answer: Waxed safflower seeds, plus an easily emptied and washed little potty tray. No electricity. No chemical smell. Nothing goes from cat to landfill. We're now the happiest cat owners I know. Though I may occasionally pretend to miss that gritty sound of cat sand being ground into a wooden floor.

(Photo: Providence House Manufacturing)