BONNEVILLE COUNTY - Every week we bring you a story about people doing good in our community in a segment we call I-witness Idaho. This week I found Joe and Betsy Keller. Joe has over 30 years experience in alternative energies at the INL and he and Betsy put that knowledge to use in their own home. And by learning from these two, you could save some green.

Everywhere we walk on this planet, we leave evidence behind that we were there. And through our energy use, we are leaving our carbon footprint for generations behind us to deal with. But Joe and Betsy Keller are doing their part to make sure their footprint is as small as possible.

"I've got a wind turbine that provides most, if not all, of my hot water needs and I've got some solar electric and solar thermal." Says Joe Keller.

Those alternative energies help Joe and Betsy reduce the amount of power they buy from the power company. "Solar thermal provides maybe 20% of my heating load in the winter." explains Keller.

Their house is 100 years old and Betsy explains what they did to make it easier to heat. "We did the insulation and we insulated the roof, we had a new roof put on. People are amazed when they come in here, even in the summer, it stays cool in the summer here."

Joe explains how they use the electricity they produce, "Solar electric I use for running a garden pump in the summer so all the garden is watered by solar electric."

These systems cost about $9,000 to install and Joe is looking at a 13 year payback. He is half way there. "You don't just go out and buy the equipment and hope that it works. You have to start out heavy on the front end engineering part. Make sure the system can work, then everyone will be happy. You'll have a system that both reduces energy and saves on the carbon footprint." Says Joe.

And those savings add up to about 300 to 400 dollars a year.
"We conserve a lot, so that may sound like a low savings." But Joe says everyone else could do what he and Betsy do. "If someone is really interested in doing something like this, the first thing to really do is conserve. Look at where your energy comes from, how it's used, start limiting the things that are really unneeded. People don't know that when they leave their computer on over night, it takes as much energy as a refrigerator to run. I can sleep at night knowing that I am doing what I can do. I'm saving power and energy where we can and for kids and future generations could have a brighter future."

Joe and Betsy also recycle everything they can.