UsableMarkets

markets, design, usability, research

UsableMarkets header image 4

Entries Tagged as 'Energy Markets'

World Greenhouse Gas Emissions

June 13th, 2010 · No Comments · Energy Markets, Information Design

Two charts from the World Resources Institute. 1. Greenhouse Gas Emissions, 2005 2. Emissions Growth, 2000 to 2005 ~alex

[Read more →]

Tags:

A Fed for energy policy

June 5th, 2010 · No Comments · Energy Markets

The ex-president of Shell has written a book: Why We Hate the Oil Companies: Straight Talk from an Energy Insider, by John Hofmeister. He seems a rather reasonable person, and makes two points in this talk below (given at Barclays Capital, in NYC). 1. The US energy policy has been so eff’d up by politicians [...]

[Read more →]

Tags:

“It’s the nonnegligible probability of utter disaster that should dominate our policy analysis”

April 21st, 2010 · No Comments · Economics, Energy Markets

Sometimes I’m a bit late on catching up on my reading, but I’m glad I didn’t skip Paul Krugman’s April 11th piece for the NY Times Magazine discussing moving to a “green economy”. It’s a good introduction to environmental economics, and discusses the basic issues, which “look very different from the inside than it often [...]

[Read more →]

Tags:

The odd thing about smart meters

April 8th, 2010 · No Comments · Energy Markets, Usability

Smart meters have been hyped as an easy way for consumers to save money by explicitly showing them their energy usage compared to times of peak cost. The theory here is that you’re likely to use less energy at times of peak cost, and shift usage to times of lower cost. This then (one hopes) [...]

[Read more →]

Tags:

Standards and making the smart grid useful

June 8th, 2009 · No Comments · Energy Markets

The Economist’s Technology Quarterly came out this past week. As usual lots of great articles including this one about the smart grid. In particular the story makes the following point: without standards many of the devices that could take advantage of the smart grid and smart meters, and thereby tell you how much electricity you’re [...]

[Read more →]

Tags:

Energy dashboard update

May 7th, 2009 · No Comments · Energy Markets, Information Design

I may not always have time to keep up to date on energy dashboards, but thanks to blogging technology and it’s popularity among smart, informed people we need not be at a loss. This time information aesthetics has picked up the ball and has a nice post on the topic. Energy Circle’s dashboard is perhaps [...]

[Read more →]

Tags:

More energy charts … or the tyranny of little blinking lights

February 24th, 2009 · No Comments · Energy Markets, Information Design

Thanks to helpful reader Jed Christiansen (blogger in chief at Mercury’s Blog) for sourcing the chart I presented previously on energy usage and sources in the US (US Energy Flow Trends, Gina V. Kaiper, June, 2004), and then happening to have the file on his computer (or somehow easily accessible). He was kind enough to [...]

[Read more →]

Tags:

Google at the (smart) meter

February 12th, 2009 · No Comments · Energy Markets, Information Design

The good folks at Google.org have apparently been testing out some visualization software for smart meters (or meters which have a much better understanding of how power gets used in your home, when, and by what appliances, and can communicate that back to the “network”). On their site they point one to a YouTube video, [...]

[Read more →]

Tags:

Fascinating (yet somewhat confusing) chart of US energy flow / usage

February 11th, 2009 · 2 Comments · Energy Markets, Information Design

HT to Clean Tech Investing (click to enlarge) Perhaps the most fascinating thing to note is how much of our energy goes up in smoke (or is otherwise “lost energy”). And please don’t ask me what the numbers mean. It seems like there’s some labeling missing from this chart. (Nor do I know what “~97 [...]

[Read more →]

Tags:

Where is the great carbon / energy efficiency dashboard? (Or, why can’t we just move beyond smiley faces?)

February 3rd, 2009 · No Comments · Energy Markets, Information Design

This weekend there was an article in the NYTImes about how some electric utility companies are using information design — in the form of smiley faces — to reinforce energy efficient behavior. (Also picked up here and here.) If you do well in energy usage compared to your neighbors, you get a smiley face … [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: