Coming soon: better tools for monitoring and regulating power consumption in the home. "Power companies will be able to cue us...to make choices about when and how we consume power. And most likely, we'll have our computers and appliances carry out those decisions for us." It's not just that we're managing power efficiency with smart tools, but we're doing it interactively with feedback to and from the energy provider. [Link]

These approaches are in early stages of development and testing; the article referenced above describes several demo projects with different approaches. Changes seem inevitable; we have to be more efficient:

Electricity use per home rose 23 percent between 1981 and 2001, according to the Department of Energy. Meanwhile, meeting that demand is getting trickier, as the raw materials that fuel power plants are soaring in price and being eyed more skeptically by regulators concerned about air quality and greenhouse gases.

So until some bountiful and clean power source can be delivered cheaply, utilities are pressured to extend the generating capacity we already have.

The effects of well-chosen reductions in usage — called demand response — can be huge.