Thursday was one of the hottest days of the summer for the Northeast U.S., and seems as if I have said that before. The electricity load on the PJM - the world's largest centrally-controlled electricity grid - peaked at over 130 billion watts yesterday. The PJM grid is what feeds energy to the web server which served this page to you. (although since it is so close to the power plant, the energy never really gets on the grid)

Every building must be refrigerated down to below 75°F, and to do that we burn lots and lots of coal. Ironically, burning coal emits more global warming causing greenhouse gases than any other method of electricity generation! I think that most air conditioning is excessive...far colder than it really needs to be.

In some places, such as Japan, homes are limited to a 5 kilowatt electricity supply. That's not enough to run even a clothes drier, water heater, or a large central air conditioner. In the U.S. most people have a 200 amp breaker and 120/240 volt service, so theoretically we have 48 kilowatts to burn. The transformers that supply power though are usually only 15-50 kW and they may be shared between 2-5 other homes. I have seen two houses on a 10kW transformer once...that's pushing it.