One thing I love about traveling to other countries is that you get to see the subtle differences in things. It always makes me think of this great clip from Pulp Fiction where Vincent discusses the "subtle differences" in his trip to Europe.
One thing in particular that I love about Singapore, Australia and Europe is their great energy saving ideas that are built into daily life. Here are a few that I think that we should adopt here in America:
Power Outlets With Power Switches
power-switches-on-power-outlets
All of the outlets in Singapore have On/Off switches built right into them. This makes it easy and convenient to switch off power to the item plugged into the outlet. Sure, I probably wouldn't use this too often for lamps in my house, but it's great for energy draining devices like Laptops, Phone Chargers, TV's and other electronics that draw "phantom power" from them. Many of these electronic devices usually draw a small amount of power to stay in a "Standby" mode. Standby mode can be helpful for some devices, but many times it is used by electronics manufacturers to help speed up the power-on cycle by a second or two. Many studies show that Phantom Power can account for almost 10% of your energy usage.
Water Heater Shutoff
Hot Water Heater Shutoff
Another energy saving device I noticed while in Singapore is a water heater shutoff switch right in my hotel room. Any time you need a bit of extra hot water, simply turn on the switch and it fill fire up the hot water boiler. Honestly, I left off the switch most of the time in my hotel room and never ran out of hot water in my strange toilet/shower or at the faucet. Even at a minimum, if every house in America had an accessible switch to shut off their hot water heater when they leave for vacation, this would help save energy. Instant hot water heaters address this issue head on, however many households still have the style of water heater with the large boiler that keeps a few hundred gallons of water hot all of the time. Installing a similar switch for the households with the boilers would help save energy.
Key Card Power Shut-off
key-card-shutoff
The final gadget I saw was the ability to power off your entire room simply by removing your key card. In a hotel, I see the demand for this because it automatically shuts off the power in your room when the guest leaves their hotel room and presumably takes their hotel card with them. Though this gadget wouldn't work in a residential situation with the use of key cards, it could be modified to work with the Bluetooth in your cell phone. When you enter the room with your registered cell phone, the house can detect who you are and turn on/off lights, adjust the thermostat and even turn on the radio based on your preferred settings. When you leave the house (assuming no other registered phones are detected), the house could switch into energy saving mode automatically.