SHODAN LIVES
Notes and links from @colemanm.
Visualizing the US power grid.
A neat data viz map of the US that allows you to see major power line arteries, types of power plants and their locations, and what source the power comes from in your area. There are even layers that show solar and wind power, and where those are most effective.
Looks like Florida is powered by:
- 38% Gas
- 28% Coal
- 17% Oil
- 13% Nuclear
13% of Florida energy comes from three nuclear facilities: Crystal River, Turkey Point, and St. Lucie. That’s pretty impressive. Nuclear power provides 48% of Illinois’ energy, and a whopping 71% of Vermont’s. It’s also interesting to see how important hydro power is to the Pacific Northwest, mostly sourced from the Grand Coulee and Chief Joseph dams on the Columbia River.
(benfry)
Google PowerMeter.
Google is developing tools to monitor home energy use.
By communicating with an as-yet undeveloped set of hardware devices, the smart meter software could provide you with granular, real-time data about your energy usage.
Definitely cool technology, but not without shortcomings:
First, where’s all that data going to come from? Sure, Barack Obama’s stimulus plan calls for 40 million more smart meters to be installed, but as we noted last year, the functionality of these little devices varies widely. Some track things in real-time, others don’t.
And they’re expensive. The sensors required to track all of the major appliances in your home would be hundreds of dollars and Google isn’t just going to send you a kit with all of the smart devices.
(thx macomber)
