A Green Kitchen

Kitchen

Now apply the same thinking for reducing energy consumption from consumer electronics to the kitchen.

Low effort: Put a lid on a pot of water set to boil. Freeze food and use a microwave to heat it, which uses less energy than cooking from scratch.

Medium: Buy EnergyStar-rated white goods. Since its inception in 1991, the program has saved 100 terawatt-hours of electricity, or 2.5 percent of total U.S. electricity consumption in a year. In the no-brainer category.

High: If you want to get fancy with your appliances, look into what GE is doing. These "kitchen of the future" appliances, expected for release next year, will be clever enough to respond to a signal from a smart meter to take go into conservation mode or take advantage of off-peak rates. Whirlpool recently announced that it, too, produce one million "smart-grid compatible" clothes dryers by 2011.