First off, this year’s homes are expected to be air tight. SUPER air tight. So air tight they could make furnaces and other heating appliances obsolete. Instead, homes will be heated by everyday activities like cooking. Reducing a building’s air gaps is one of the best, easiest ways of reducing your monthly home energy needs.

Secondly, there will be energy-efficient appliances for all! We hope, at least… If advances in the green appliance sector continue at the current rate, energy-efficient home appliances like refrigerators, toasters and microwaves should become affordable enough for a larger percentage of American homeowners — in 2011 and beyond. And you can still cash in on federal tax credits if the appliances are ENERGY STAR certified. Then you’ll really be in business.

Speaking of certification, more small businesses should be certified environmentally friendly in 2011 than ever before. Broadly speaking, getting OK’d for energy remodeling, commissioning, project registration, etc., is expensive. Many times it’s too expensive, unfortunately, for small businesses to get certified. So why is that going to change in 2011? Cheaper, alternative certification programs are popping up, making the process financially feasible for mom and pop shops.

This fourth one gets us solar energy junkies really excited. As we all know, there are many roofs that just aren’t suitable for solar due to tilt, shading or other factors. But solar communities are expected to sprout up across the country throughout 2011 and make those problems all but disappear. In fact, we saw the groundwork for such communities laid down toward the end of 2010 when the Northwest Sustainable Energy for Economic Development (SEED) released its guide to building a solar community.It’s pretty interesting, so be sure to check it out and see if there’s anything you can do to perpetuate this trend.

Another rather interesting note: energy consumption is predicted to become more transparent. Social networking sites are partly responsible for this, but so too are solar energy systems that now come with monitoring screens, mobile device applications that let you monitor your up-to-the-second energy consumption from anywhere and energy score systems.

For the record, we don’t advocate lambasting your neighbor if you find out they’re using too much energy. Just help them out by giving them some tips. And to help you out, here’s the full version of the report. Happy New Year!

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The main takeaways? (1) Relative to other expenditures, like health and national defense, America has over the years spent paltry sums on energy research and development. (2) Of the R&D funds allocated for energy, most of it has gone to fossil fuels and nuclear technologies (though the share going to renewable energy and energy efficiency is growing). (3) As Mackenzie notes, compared to other industrialized countries (save Japan) the U.S. is not alone in its spending habits. Take a look at the accompanying charts:

Looking at that pale blue-bulge during the 60s and 70s (labeled “Space” in the second chart), I can see why Al Gore has chosen to at times describe the drive for renewable energy as our generation’s “space race.” There have also been recent alternative references to a “new Manhattan project.” Metaphors aside, it’s clear the Obama Administration is set on boosting R&D for renewables and energy efficiency. Don’t believe me? Just check out this post from Cleanbeta (Just what you wanted, another chart…).

UPDATE: Geoffery Styles offers his take on how the historic moon landing of Apollo 11 — which took place 40 years ago this coming Monday — is similar, but not identical, to efforts needed to develop and deploy clean-energy technologies:

Yet as impressive and unprecedented as that was, and in spite of a host of valuable breakthroughs and spinoffs in electronics, medicine, and other fields, this is precisely where all of the analogies between energy and Apollo break down. Remaking our energy systems to provide the safe, secure, affordable and environmentally-sound means of energizing the entire economy–national or global, take your pick–will be nothing like making a few trips to the moon and then turning our back on it for four decades. It will require a durable bi-partisan consensus in government for at least a generation and enduring public support of a kind that NASA was ultimately unable to sustain.

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