Of all the things we've tried to do to keep our house warm and our energy costs down, one thing we'd not had done was the cavity wall insulation. Our path to getting this done started with an inspection where a couple of guys turned up and drilled a hole in the wall - Yep, we've got cavity walls in our 1964 house. We were told that there was no charge, no catches and if we wanted our loft insulated they could do that too - all under a government-funded grant scheme.

It's Earth Day 2012, folks. What are you doing to mark the fact?

One of the main thrusts of the day is to promote green awareness and especially to push for people to be more aware of and involved in their environment.  The "billion acts of green" is a good start, and amongst the suggestions I've seen a number of actions or pledges made for Earth Day 2012, some of them being...

Infographics seem to be all the rage at the moment and here's one we've been sent about power consumption facts for the US.

America consumes more electricity than any other country in the world but China is fast catching up!

However, the surprise fact is that Canadians reportedly consume more electricity per capita than any other nation. I didn't know that!

Anyway, here's the infographic, power consumption facts for the US...

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We've had an interesting email from the Make Wood Work campaign.

In essence, the UK Government's Renewables Obligation (RO) policy encourages the use of bio-mass burners for electricity generation with financial subsidies. Whilst, from an environmentally-friendly point of view, biomass burning creates energy from waste materials, the forest products industry is concerned that using wood for bio-mass burners will damage their industry.

Yesterday morning just one piece of mail came through the letterbox - Ecotricity's Progress Report 2010.

That's just one very good reason for choosing Ecotricity as our green energy supplier all those years ago - They're open, they're honest and they keep their customers informed which is something I've not seen from any other energy company.

In their own words Ecotricity kicked off the report by saying:

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It's that time of year again - Saturday March 26th at 8:30pm is Earth Hour.

For those of you who don't know about Earth Hour it's a worldwide movement where people switch of the power for one hour. You  might ask how much energy is saved by switching everything off for one hour, but it's more than that - it's a politic statement, a social, cultural and environmental statement...

Ignore the name on the device (We're thinking of going to our friends at Ecotricity for their green gas scheme) but this is our new smartpower meter. OK, we've had it a few weeks now, but this little device is a lifesaver. OK, moneysaver. Energysaver.

I hadn't been in to my local branch of B&Q, the DIY store, for many months but, being just down the road from my office, I popped in today to get a light bulb for my fridge and was impressed with the sheer range of energy saving lightbulbs they had on offer.

Unfortunately the little lightbulb for the fridge was only an F-rated one but I did pick up an A-rated outdoor lightbulb too whilst they were at a good price (only £1.00) But anyway, check out this selection - enough green lightbulbs to warm the heart of any green...

Recent high temperatures this summer have meant an increase in use of air conditioning in the High Street according to Make It Cheaper, the business price comparison service.

So we've had Google Chrome, Google Buzz, Google Wave, Google Labs, Google Docs, Google Mail and now Google Wind Farms.

OK, not really, that last one we made up, but it might as well be real seeing as Google, the search giant, has invested $38.8 million in a wind farm (approximately £25.3 million). Apparently this is the first time that Google has made a "direct investment in a utility-scale renewable energy project".