I have a love/hate relationship with buses. I love that they save me gasoline, are more efficient than driving a car, and reduce my greenhouse gas emissions. However, I hate them when they're running late! But there is one category of buses that I'm particularly fond of – those that run on alternative fuels. In fact, alternative fuel and advanced technology transit buses offer a number of health, environmental, and social benefits.

As anyone who has walked behind a traditional diesel bus knows, the plume of black smoke from its tailpipe is both unpleasant and unhealthy. That smelly cloud contains high amounts of particulate matter and oxides of nitrogen (NO_x), especially if it's an older bus. These pollutants are the main causes of smog and contribute to a number of respiratory problems, including chest pain, bronchitis, and asthma.

In contrast, laboratory tests have shown alternative fuel buses release far fewer emissions than their counterparts. A 2005 study by the Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory found that Washington, D.C., transit buses that ran on compressed natural gas produced 49% fewer NOx emissions and 84% lower particulate matter emissions than diesel transit buses equipped with the same model year engines. These reductions are particularly important in D.C., as this region's pollution levels regularly exceed the Environmental Protection Agency's air pollution standards. Similarly, hybrid-electric buses belonging to the King County Fleet in Seattle produced 18%–38% less NO_x and 50%–92.6% lower particulate matter emissions than traditional models. Other fleets are using cleaner biodiesel blends in their buses, which combines traditional diesel with fuel made from soybeans, waste grease, and other feedstocks. By adopting alternative fuel and advanced technology buses, cities are cleaning the air in their communities.

In addition to smog-forming emissions, alternative fuel and advanced technology buses produce fewer of the greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change. Although just taking public transit lowers your carbon footprint, riding a bus that runs on alternative fuel can bring it down even further. Buses that run on compressed natural gas produce 23% fewer lifecycle greenhouse gases than equivalent diesel buses. Similarly, because hybrid electric buses have up to 30% better fuel economy than traditional buses, they use less diesel and release fewer greenhouse gas emissions.

Another major benefit of alternative fuel buses is that they improve America's national security. The United States imports 60% of its petroleum, two-thirds of which are used to produce gasoline and diesel. The more transportation runs on largely domestic fuels such as natural gas and biodiesel, the less petroleum the country must import and the less dependent Americans are on volatile foreign markets.

Lastly, alternative fuel buses can provide financial benefits to the cities that run them. As natural gas is generally cheaper and has a more consistent price than petroleum, compressed natural gas buses can save their city a tremendous amount in fuel costs. This money can then go into other transportation services, such as purchasing more buses or creating bicycle lanes.

So the next time you get on a bus, look to see if it runs on alternative fuels or uses advanced technology. If it does, you know that you are helping support cleaner transportation. If not, contact your local Clean Cities coalition to find out how to get cleaner transit buses out on your city's streets.

Shannon Brescher Shea is the communications coordinator for Clean Cities in the Vehicle Technologies Program of EERE.

The freshest energy news on the block this week is the newly designed eere.energy.gov. In case you haven't visited the site lately, the EERE site contains in-depth information about the U.S. Department of Energy's office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy.

The site is now better organized, with more visible information about the various EERE programs. There are also helpful links to various sources of information:

• Energy Efficiency: Homes, Buildings, Vehicles, Industry, and Government
• Renewable Energy: Solar, Wind, Water, Biomass, Geothermal, and Hydrogen and Fuel Cells
• Resources: Calculators and Software, Education and Training, Maps and Data, Multimedia, Careers, Publications and Products, and a Glossary of Energy Terms.

It's also much easier to access social media such as Facebook, RSS Feeds, Widgets, and Others.

Take a look and let us know what you think. Enjoy!

Andrea Spikes is a communicator at DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory, which assists EERE in providing technical content for many of its Web sites.

On Monday, Amy discussed how she keeps track of her energy costs and uses past bills to plan her budget for the coming months. Her utility has a useful tool that helps with her planning. If your utility doesn't offer a similar service, you might try using ENERGY STAR's Home Energy Yardstick.

How do you track and budget for energy costs?

Each Thursday, you have the chance to share your thoughts on a question about energy efficiency or renewable energy for consumers. Please comment with your answers, and also feel free to respond to other comments.

This winter has seemed like an especially long one to me. I'm ready to wear shorts and enjoy nice, long summer days. Alas, the reality is that it will probably be cold for at least another month here in Washington, D.C. All that cold air robs not only our jacketed bodies of warmth, but it also carries heat away from the places where we want it most this time of year: our homes, apartments, and businesses.

All that heat loss costs money. I've been in friends' houses that just never seem to stay warm, even when their furnace kicks on every 15 or 20 minutes. I can just hear the swishing sound of them flushing money down the toilet—not the most efficient thing they could do with it! So I've been thinking about what they can do save money and keep the cold where it belongs: outside.

The logical first step for anybody wanting to improve the energy efficiency of their home is to begin with a home energy audit. We blogged in-depth about the different kinds of audits on Energy Savers awhile back—it's essential reading for understanding the basics of performing an energy audit in your home or business. In a nutshell, through a series of tests, the audit identifies all of problem areas of the building, such as air leaks, moisture problems and inefficient appliances, and it prioritizes the most critical ways that owners can improve their home or office's energy use. The auditor will produce list of cost-effective things to do such as weather-stripping doors, insulating or replacing windows, air-sealing the basement and attic, and so on.

Then, after doing some of your own research and perhaps referring to a consumer energy pyramid, or better yet, consulting with a pro (who can provide the audit and recommendations), it's time to put all that information into action. What you learn from the audit—including all of the improvements you can make that cost you nothing, such as turning off your lights, TVs and computers and running the heater less often—ranges from the obvious to the subtle. Some of the easy, low-hanging fruit can be grabbed by switching to energy-saving lighting, installing a water heater blanket and replacing your old thermostat with an automated one.

Working your way up the consumer energy pyramid, which ranks the most cost-effective ways to make a commitment to an energy-efficient lifestyle, or ticking off your checklist supplied from the energy audit, you'll start getting into the upgrades that cost more money. Improvements such as air-sealing, ENERGY STAR® products, added insulation, high-efficiency heating and cooling equipment and windows, as identified and prioritized by the energy audit, will bring you closer toward minimizing your energy use.

After shoring up your home or business in all of the ways indicated by the "energy doctor" or auditor who performed your audit, it will make sense to start thinking about the renewable energy system that you've been dreaming about, such as a small wind turbine or roof-mounted photovoltaic solar array. But efficiency upgrades will bring you more savings for your buck, so they should be performed first. Anybody making any major purchase of energy efficiency or renewable energy equipment should educate themselves about the incentives that make these technologies affordable to the average consumer. And even if you think this stuff sounds out of reach, you may very well qualify for a Weatherization Assistance Program-sponsored retrofit in your state.

So with all of these ideas, I'll be able to suggest some little things and some big things to my friends that they can do to save money and stay more comfortable year-round. In the meantime, stay warm in there!

Eric Barendsen is a communications specialist and Presidential Management Fellow with EERE's Technology Advancement and Outreach office in Washington, D.C.

It may come as a shock to my college math professor, but where my family's finances are concerned, I'm a budgeter. Just before a new month begins, I take some time to plan for the month's regular bills as well as any special events or holidays that might require setting some extra money aside. I even have a special notebook to track all this financial data (and shopping for a new notebook every year is half the fun of fiscal responsibility).

But as proactive as I am with my monthly budgeting, I tend to be reactive when it comes to my monthly utility bills. I take a guess at what my bill will be at the beginning of the month, and then I'm either excited when the bill is less than my estimate or—and this is much worse—upset when the bill exceeds my estimate, meaning I have to shuffle funds from some other part of my budget to cover it. Even with some recent efficiency improvements, the process of paying for my home's energy usage over the last few months has started to feel like a low-budget 1950's horror film called Attack of the 50-Foot Utility Bill.

Recently I was on my utility company's Web site preparing to pay another month's bill when I noticed that the site actually puts a wealth of historical information about my energy usage right at my fingertips. There's a chart that compares my energy usage to other similar homes in my area and another that estimates what percentage of my energy usage can be attributed to which appliances. There's even a nifty graph that superimposes my energy usage with information on heating degree days in my area so I can see how the weather plays a role in my utility costs.

But when it comes to budgeting, my favorite section of the site is the chart that compares a single month's energy usage with the same month in previous years. I have nearly two years of energy data for my current home, and it turns out that my usage for a particular month has so far been relatively consistent from one year to the next. Thanks to all this data, I'm ready to get a lot more precise about my energy budgeting in the months ahead. After all, when it comes to surprises of the how-am-I-going-to-pay-for-this variety, fewer is always better.

If your utility doesn't offer these same kind of online energy tracking tools, ENERGY STAR's^® Home Energy Yardstick will help you create the same kind of charts and graphs with only a little work on your part. All you'll need is a handful of old utility billing statements and the willingness to do a bit of data entry.

Amy Foster Parish is on staff with the Washington State University Extension Energy Program and answers inquiries through the EERE Information Center.