A Focus on Services

I saw a remarkably prescient lecture by L. Hunter Lovins last year, where she declared (if I can paraphrase correctly) that "Most people wouldn't know what a Kilowatt-Hour was if it bit them on the leg!" What she means is that while you receive an electricity bill, you have no real understanding of the amount of electricity you consume but rather, only enjoy what you conciously experience: the services that electicity provides. It's a little like getting a numerator without the denominator. Sure, the average American home uses 45 Kwhrs of electricity a day, but if we could do all the same things using less energy, would we care - or even realize? That is: if you installed energy efficient bulbs, got rid of vampire devices, and used a low power (as in wattage) computer and refrigerator, would you actually be sacrificing something that only 45 kWhrs a day can bring you? My guess is no - people instead focus on the quality of the services they can conciously appreciate: the coldness of their beer, the quality of the picture on their TV, the speed of their internet, the toastiness of their hot buttered toast.

So when you think about those two 10% efficient 80W panels, the deep cycle batteries from the old golf cart, and the cheap inverter - don't be discouraged.Just think: science fiction, by definition, is partly real.