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Green Eco Club Review

Electricity prices are soaring, oil and gas prices are too, and humanity's looming collision with the limits of nature's tolerance requires urgent action.

For all these reasons, as well as the fact that the cost of renewable energy technology is dropping, adding an in-home solar or wind system is becoming increasingly popular.

But having such a system installed by a commercial contractor specializing in them is not cheap, either. Sure, you'll save a lot on your monthly electric bill, but only after shelling out thousands of dollars up front -- almost the price of a new car for a typical house.

The popularity of a do-it-yourself approach to solar power, wind power, and other green alternatives is rising from this impasse. It's not surprising, then, that online guides to doing exactly that (making your own solar panels, for example, and building your own solar system around them) are appearing these days.

EXPOSED

The Green Eco Club (www.greenecoclub.com) is not a guide as such, but it's another company offering to help provide knowledge and information that can save money on going green.

So What Is the Green Eco Club?

The Green Eco Club is a web site for members only. The cost is $27 per month, for which you get monthly tips and helping hints and links to information about all aspects of going green: power generation, energy efficiency, and so on. Upon signing up, you also receive a package of nine ebooks on various topics involving solar and wind power, including several on solar power, one on wind power, something called "Going Green: Your Complete Guide," and even a book on raising chickens.

The membership may be cancelled at any time. The site guarantees that you will save at least $100 a month using information it provides, and if you find that isn't true and cancel your membership within 60 days, you will receive a refund of all funds paid, in which case you still get to keep the nine ebooks.

This is a different format than one normally finds in online green energy guides. The more usual practice is to require a single up-front payment in return or a single comprehensive guide, usually to building your own solar system or wind system or sometimes both.

As a club with its own online database, which can be expected to grow over time, the Green Eco Club takes things in a somewhat different direction. Two months of membership in the club would exceed the cost of most of the one-shot guides.

The question, it seems, is whether the information provided on an ongoing basis is worth that fairly substantial monthly fee. It might make more sense for the club to charge a higher price for the first month including all the ebooks, and a lower ongoing monthly rate. That's just a thought, though.

Here are some of the resources that the Green Eco Club makes available. It has a library of multi-media material, including videos and MP3s, on green energy. Each week, it uploads new tips on green living and saving money.

The club also buys and uploads renewable power guides and makes them available to members at no additional cost, claiming to do one of these per month. Finally, the club includes an online question and answer service called "Ask The Expert" permitting members who are baffled about something relating to green energy or green living to get helpful advice.

Green Eco Club - Is It Worth It?

That's really an individual decision. A lot depends on how seriously into renewable energy and other green lifestyle matters you want to be.

If all you want to do is build a do-it-yourself solar system, there are probably more cost-effective ways to get the information on how to do that. (In fact, if you don't mind doing some laborious digging, there are ways to get this information free of charge.) But the club might be worthwhile if you want an ongoing source of ideas and information to fine-tune your green lifestyle to the max.