Google have just announced an interesting new initiative - Google.org is soon to roll out free software which allows people to track their home electricity use and improve energy efficiency in a bid to help mitigate global warming.
Google PowerMeter, now in prototype, will receive information from utility smart meters and energy management devices and provide anyone who signs up access to her home electricity consumption right on her iGoogle homepage. The graph below shows how someone could use this information to figure out how much energy is used by different household activites.
I'm not sure it will work in New Zealand but we'll keep an eye on it.
More here.
Oh and as an aside ... here's an interesting piece on french nuclear success or otherwise.