http://www.zangtumbtumb.com/nat_grid/
Description
This hack generates a visualisation of the current fuel mix of National Grid electricity. It displays:
- Fuel mix
- Current National Grid Power (in GigaWatts)
- Current National Grid emissions (in tonnes CO2 per second)
- Current carbon intensity (in grammes CO2 per kWh)
The hack was inspired by: realtimecarbon.org and uses data from here.
The idea is that people have a very poor sense of how their electricity is made. Being able to see how much of our electricity comes from coal and gas and how little comes from renewable sources are used may help people to engage politically to change electricity production.
In the future a similar visualisation may support attempts to develop load balancing applications with meaningful impact on carbon emissions.
The idea of the style of the visualisation is that it is supposed to suggest several streams of different width coming together to make up a single electricity cable. It’s a quick and dirty hack and needs cleaning up visually.
