THIS WEEK: In this week&apos;s webisode: how to turn a Solar Decathlon house into a home. GW students Melissa Turley and Jon Fenech followed Team Empowerhouse through the Solar Decathlon. Their innovation? Making it affordable enough to be a Habitat for Humanity home. PLUS: Max Burns&apos; blog post which takes a deeper look into affordable green housing. ANNOUNCEMENT: Congratulations to Team Middlebury for winning Planet Forward&apos;s Solar Decathlon Contest! You voted &apos;em so tune into the NBR piece on Oct. 20th, which will feature Middlebury and the team&apos;s major innovations. FROM OUR BLOG: Check out this week&apos;s blog post by Anthony Cefali about how some living plants in your home can improve air quality. Brown thumbs need not apply... FROM OUR NEWSDESK: Thank you to PFF Sarah Cahlan for submitting this piece about Participant Media&apos;s upcoming documentary. Check it out to learn more about water conservation and how it&apos;s plaguing our planet. BEFORE WE LET YOU GO: We know that sometimes the search for affordable housing can make people feel stuck, so we&apos;re trying to shed some humor on the situation!

Planet Forward

Empowerhouse: Community-Based Sustainable Living

THIS WEEK: Did you know that the cost of using electricity changes throughout the day depending on the level of stress on our grid? In this webisode, Planet Forward talks to Quadlogic Controls Corporation in New York City about how smart meters can save us energy and money. FROM OUR BLOG: Check out PFF Sayre Swarztrauber’s blog post about smart meters and energy management. ALSO: Want to see other ways small businesses are working to de-stress our electricity grid? Duke alumnus David Brewster talks about how his company, EnerNOC, helps drive energy efficiency. FROM OUR NEWSDESK: The results are in! Here are 12 smart grid companies to watch in 2012.

Monitor Power Usage With Smart Meters

THIS WEEK: Did you know the vegetable oil we use to make our french fries could also power our cars? In this webisode, Planet Forward drops by GreenLight BioFuels’ new plant in Maryland where they’ve been turning cooking waste into biofuel. FROM OUR BLOG: Check out Planet Forward host, Frank Sesno’s blog post about an innovative way to turn landfill trash into sustainable fuel. ALSO: Want to learn more about renewable fuels? President of Shell Oil, John Hofmeister talks about the importance of biofuels in a secure energy future. FROM OUR NEWSDESK: Berkeley scientists are looking into seaweed as a potential fuel source. Find out what they’ve discovered about this underwater alternative. Want to stay up to date with Planet Forward? Click here to subscribe to our email list!

From Fryer To Fuel: Making Biofuel from Vegetable Oil

THIS WEEK: This week Planet Forward is taking a look at the work PISA, a GW-based group, is doing in Nam Dinh, Vietnam. The women in Nam Dinh are adapting to a changing planet and they say they learned their tricks from none other than their ancestors! ASK AN EXPERT: Don&apos;t forget to ask a question to PISA expert, Linda Yarr, about the ladies of Nam Dinh and climate adaptation in Southeast Asia. MORE IDEAS: Worried about rising sea levels? Check out this idea from PFF Chutayaves Sinthuphan about floating houses and how they can help in our future. FROM OUR BLOG: Want to know what other countries are doing to be sustainable? Check out PFF Sarah Cahlan&apos;s photo blog about sustainable communities around the world! NEXT WEEK: Want to know who gets the title for the world&apos;s first LEED platinum auto plant? Tune in to next week&apos;s webisode and learn about what innovations make this auto plant the first of its kind!

Learning How to Adapt from our Ancestors

THIS WEEK: Have you ever wondered &apos;What&apos;s something I do everyday that impacts the environment and I don&apos;t even know it?&apos; #Thinkfwd student Charles Pulliam-Moore sheds light on an idea you might never have thought of: how green is YouTube? FROM OUR BLOG: Check out PFF Hayley Milon&apos;s blog post about how your YouTube consumption could be affecting the atmosphere. FROM OUR NEWSDESK: Facebook is already thinking about greening their servers. Check out what their plan is for their massive server farm in Sweden. FROM NBR: Tune in this week to the PBS Nightly Business Report to learn more about Ogranica&apos;s BlueHouse, which says it can turn your sewage into water you can use to water your plants!

How does YouTube Consumption Affect the Environment?

THIS WEEK: Wish more of your tax dollars could stay in your pocket? This week Planet Forward spoke with some experts at the US Green Building Council about the potential savings in building more efficient schools! FROM OUR BLOG: Check out USGBC&apos;s statistics on improving schools and universities around the country and how much it can save in this week&apos;s guest blog. FROM OUR NEWSDESK: We could use the savings too, according to this article submitted by Planet Forward&apos;s Charlie Rybak which says the U.S. is seeing the most expensive natural disasters in history! FROM OUR PARTNERS: For more from USGBC experts Rachel Gutter and Rick Fedrizzi check out their ideas by going to the COMMIT!Forum group on PlanetForward.org!

Building Green for the Future

THIS WEEK: Our rapidly increasing consumption of water is creating concerns about what the world would be like without any! One team, however, created an innovative solution to the planet&apos;s quickly disappearing water. Check it out in this week&apos;s webisode! ASK AN EXPERT: Also get the facts from AIA expert Bill Worthen about any risks related to recycled water and its systems. FROM OUR BLOG: Ever wanted to walk on water? How about live on it? Check out PFF Sarah Cahlan&apos;s blog postabout what these Thai houses are doing to stay afloat. TOP TWEET: Thanks to PFF Jordan Petitt for keeping us informed about issues with water: @justpetitt: Well this is frightening- the next 500 years of #sealevelrise@planet_forward ow.ly/7agJ3 #thinkfwd Before we let you go: At least we know these guys wouldn&apos;t be unhappy in a world without water! See how they make the best of a waterless pool!

An Innovative Approach to Water Conservation

THIS WEEK: Our friends at Second Nature have launched Campus Sustainability Day, so this week’s webisode features videos submitted to Planet Forward from audience members like YOU! We profile three schools that are working toward more sustainable college campuses. FROM OUR EXPERTS: See what sustainability chief Meghan Chapple-Brown has to say about what campuses can do to become sustainable. FROM OUR NEWSDESK: Thanks to PFF Joel Goldberg for offering a little support! Check out this article he submitted about how women&apos;s bras could be used as fuel. FROM OUR PARTNERS: Planet Forward showcases videos from across the country, submitted by viewers like YOU. Show us what&apos;s happening on your campus just like Caldwell College and University of Nebraska have done! FROM NBR: Middlebury College of Vermont knows what it means to be sustainable. The team won Planet Forward&apos;s contest and was featured in last week&apos;s PBS Nightly Business Report!

Living Sustainably on a College Campus

Planet Forward is an innovative web-to-television-to-web experience anchored on user-generated ideas and content about energy, climate change and sustainability. Planet Forward is at the very intersection of the green movement and the new media revolution. We proudly stand with other environmentally-conscious, public media outlets such as Earthbeat Radio, Green TV, NPR Environment Podcast, Planet Green, The Environment Report, Treehugger Radio, Time Greencast, PBS’s NewsHour, Moyers, Now, and Washington Week. We encourage you to subscribe to our program along with all the rest of these and find yourself tapped in to the cutting edge media arm of the most important movement in human history. Guests on Planet Forward include: The New York Times’ Thomas Friedman, US EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, directors Robert Kenner and Robert Stone. Hosted by Frank Sesno. Planet Forward is a project of the Center for Innovative Media at The George Washington University.