Progress Energy will soon be able to rely on thousands of marketing helpers to recruit customers for an energy conservation program.

The new recruiters will be none other than existing Progress customers.

The Raleigh-based electric utility received approval today from state regulators to pay customers financial bonuses for referring other customers into the conservation program.

Progress will pay customers up to $100 a year, or $25 per referral, through bill credits. To qualify, the customer doing the referrals has to be enrolled in the EnergyWise conservation program.

Amory Lovins, a Harvard and Oxford-educated physicist regarded by some as a prophet of energy efficiency, will speak tomorrow about energy-saving frontiers at N.C. State University in Raleigh.

Lovins was one of the first to advocate for incentivizing industries and utilities to use less energy by paying them for achieving savings. The idea was dismissed at first but has since been adopted by many states, including North Carolina in its 2007 energy law requiring power companies to increase their reliance on renewable resources and energy efficiency.

Lovins is the co-founder, with his wife, of the Rocky Mountain Institute, and the winner of numerous awards and prizes, including the 1993 MacArthur Fellow, commonly known as the "genius grant." The author of 31 books and more than 450 papers, he was listed as one of the most influential figures in business in the centennial issue of The Wall Street Journal and named as one of the world's 100 most influential people by Time magazine.
 

Do you want to lessen your impact on the environment? No matter your living situation, there's a little something all of us can do to be a bit greener in 2012. Just adopting one new green habit can make a difference. Here are some tips to help get you started:

The North Carolina Coastal Land Trust is among three nonprofit conservation organizations to receive a Sustainable Forestry Initiative conservation grant.

Conservation advocates have long complained that the system is rigged to reward electric utilities and their customers for wasting energy.

So conservationists have come up with an alternative: Charge heavy users of electricity a higher rate than those who use less, not unlike the concept of progressive taxation.

Such a proposal has been introduced in the N.C. General Assembly on behalf of the Canary Coalition, a group in Sylva, about 300 miles west of Raleigh and 50 miles west of Asheville. It's not clear if the proposal can gain any traction in the state legislature.

"It would raise peoples' rates who don't do anything to conserve in energy efficiency," said Avram Friedman, the Canary Coalition's executive director.

State officials announced $8.5 million in federal stimulus money for energy and conservation projects as North Carolina begins to wind down its stimulus funding.

The awards announced this morning by Gov. Bev Perdue's office range from $24,719 for a YMCA in Buncombe County to $500,000 for resin and fiber maker DAK Americas in Brunswick County and $500,000 for Kapstone Kraft, a paper mill in Halifax County.

The awards will pay for rooftop solar panels, landfill gas reclamation, solar thermal heating units and energy efficiency upgrades at local town halls, nonprofits and businesses.

The Southern Environmental Law Center released its Top 10 Most Endangered Places today, and three are in North Carolina — Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge, Snowbird Mountains, and the Cape Fear Basin.

Conservation efforts from decades ago to protect endangered sea turtles on the North Carolina coast seem to be paying off. Read more about it here.

Who says being energy efficient has to be costly? A new neighborhood in Henderson, designed by a nationally known conservation planner, is one of six in the state where the Conservation Trust for North Carolina has helped develop affordable neighborhoods that save natural spaces. Read more about it here.

Interested in finding some free eco-experiences in the area to add to your summer plans? Here are some guided field trips sponsored by Central Carolina Community College and the Chatham Conservation Partnership.