Going green, environmentally and financially

If Charles Szoradi could figure out how to power a car or even a light bulb with his caffeine-free personal pep reservoir, he just might achieve his goal of ending America's energy-hogging ways.

But for now, the 43-year-old Main Line environmental entrepreneur is gaining widespread acclaim and recognition as he presses the case for going green in more conventional ways. In the process, he's trying to make some money.

His delivery is breathless, his enthusiasm seductive. But don't mistake for an over-the-top idealist this man who is perpetually strategizing, teaching, selling, researching, and inventing. (An architect by education, Szoradi designed the system that heats, cools, runs the electric, and heats the water for his 4,800-square-foot ultra-green house in Wayne, all from renewable sources. It earned him a cover profile in Inventor's Digest magazine in 2008.)

His sales pitch is grounded in what Szoradi contends is an incontrovertible premise - that unless going green makes financial sense, it will not be embraced by anyone other than the most enthusiastic of environmentalists.

The soon-to-expire utility rate caps in Pennsylvania are expected to serve as a mighty effective motivator, Szoradi contends.

"When people open that utility bill," he said, "it will be like being hit by a brick."

But in these pre-rate-increase days, Szoradi said, "the [going-green] chatter is 10 times the action."

Much of that talk is coming from Szoradi himself.

He is, as he put it, on an "all-out sprint" to promote what he contends are the economic and environmental virtues of the latest generation of conservation lighting - LEDs, or light-emitting diodes. For that, the father of two young children has formed LED Saving Solutions.

It is a division of his better-known GreenandSave L.L.C. Founded in 2006, GreenandSave is believed to be the first public resource on green initiatives to provide return-on-investment data for homeowners and businesses wondering what sorts of conversions to higher-efficiency lighting, appliances, and heating and cooling systems, if any, they should make, and how soon to expect a payback. The Web site is www.greenandsave.com and evolved from Szoradi's desire to share what he learned as he retrofitted his home.