Production vs. Demand

Whatever you think of Al Gore, I believe everyone now wonders if they have a responsibility to do something about emissions and energy usage.

I wonder - how much energy waste is there in the world?  Searching journals I find find that experts believe between 10-35% of our energy bill is due to wasteful behavior - poorly manged systems, lights left on, no setback etc.

As folks talk about Carbon taxes, carbon trading, ice caps melting, etc, if makes me wonder what the next best step is?  Well if 10-35% of our energy usage is due to waste, then I am tempted to address waste before I start trying to figure out how to sequester CO2.

So, how do we get rid of waste?  If you wanted to lose weight, would you weigh yourself once a month to see how you were doing on your diet?  No!  So, why do we wait until the end of the month to see our energy bill?  And, if we looked at our bill could we even understand what we did to make it so high or low?  No...

What people need is a sense of cause and effect - "It must have been the donut that caused me to gain 1/2 lb."  How do we get cause and effect?   Real time information generate from M2M devices that feed into enterprise systems.

I believe the simple step of showing time series energy usage and emission data superimposed with thermostat set points would help people understand the cost of their decisions.  With the facts strring them in the face, they would hten more likely make the changes required to eliminate waste.