This post was spurred by a couple of nice developments - one at home and one at work.
First, while paying my electricity bill on-line, I noticed a link to "usage statistics". I clicked on it and found that I could monitor my energy usage monthly/weekly/daily and even by the hour. This is how a sample day looked like:
I think that it is super-cool. About as important a development as any and as I said on Facebook, this is truly deserving of the smart prefix. Nothing helps a cause more than affixing good hard numbers to stuff ($ values are even better). That said, we gotta go easy on using my HDTV and microwave.
I work with some kids in the computer science department and the last time I went for a meeting there, I noticed cell phone sized devices attached to each power-outlet and the computers and other paraphernalia were connected to these. It appears that some student is running this thing using which you can monitor how your energy gets used - in a way that is way more detailed than my home usage. Take a look at this awesomeness:
powernet.stanford.edu is where its at - If you set up an account with them, you can monitor every power-outlet you use and break it down in great detail. True to form, the nerds (sorry guys) that I work with even had a powernet device monitoring the energy usage of another powernet device.
I was thinking about breaking down the energy usage in my laptop and that got me going on how incredible it would be if we were able to do this on our cars - I'd be interested in knowing how much energy I lose in applying brakes, stepping on the gas for no reason, air conditioning, idling, etc. I'd pay to be able to graph it. Think Prius times 10 levels of greatness.
Seriously though, there is no better innovation in energy efficiency than cutting down wastage. Monitoring energy use is the first step.
Edit: People will protest anything http://www.montereyherald.com/local/ci_17545753?nclick_check=1
