The easy way to go green
At last Friday's Energy Night at the MIT Museum, Dr. Keith Collins described his approach to fighting global warming with all the gusto of a really good insurance salesman. But Collins, who graduated from MIT in 1970 with a degree in political science, wasn't actually selling anything. He was just proclaiming to anyone who would listen just how easy it is to go green. As one of the dozens of presenters at the annual event, which showcases the best in energy research, education and entrepreneurship from around MIT, Collins described a 700-square-foot house he built last year in Rockport, Maine, without any kind of a furnace, or even a fireplace. That might seem like madness or masochism in a place like New England, but Collins has data that show otherwise: Last year, the house not only used no additional energy beyond the sunlight that fell on its roof,...