They have been talking about having computers in homes for years now, if you can have a digital programmable thermostat and irrigation controller why can't you have an electric meter that not only charges more for peak times but displays that somewhere (like on the digital thermostat)-the usage, cost, how much you could save if you turned the dryer off until later...
At this point it has to be right up in people's face to get them to conserve anything (most people, anyway)

re "Good Luck with that"

That's kind of the point of the whole site, isn't it?

I agree wholeheartedly with Brutus' point. We might pout and fuss that 'baseload electricity' is our non-negotiable demand to maintain this lifestyle, but any number of factors might jump in and interrupt the flow.. Uranium, Nat Gas, Coal or Oil supply 'complications', Grid failures, Weather events, Computer Glitches, etc etc.. It seems absolutely crucial that we start to find ways to handle electricity interruptions, and to be able to continue business and other parts of life, even if a grid failure occurs.

Clearly nuclear has some support to continue and try to hold the grid up.. but I don't trust the High-Finance Power Industry, the Poisonous Supply and Waste, and the Complex chain that the system depends on for massive, central power supplies, when gangable diverse technologies are available and structurally safer and more democratic.

Well goinggreen, good luck to us all, but if you really want to change the electricity system, you should challenge utility thinking once in awhile.