Not content with putting electronic bug to monitor your trash bin, Big Brother in UK used spy plane to fly overhead to identify homes that are wasting energy:
Spy-in-the-sky cameras are being used to identify householders who are wasting the most energy and to shame them into turning the central heating down.
Thermal images of homes have been taken by a light aircraft fitted with military spy technology to record the heat escaping from people’s houses.
Maps identifying individual homes have now been placed on the internet to encourage occupiers to reduce their wastage and carbon emissions by fitting insulation and turning the thermostat down.
Haringey Council, in London, has become the first authority in England to place house-by-house thermal maps on the web, after the example of Aberdeen in Scotland.
Link | Original article at Times Online
While there might be some merit to previous comments that the Man is looking for dope growers - if you've ever lived in Harringey, you'd know this one's a no-brainer...), one has to wonder if this is really a pertinent use of technology.
And rather than "shaming' the excess energy users into compliance, where are the initiatives to provide subsidised or low cost insulation to those properties identifed..?
Silly me, the Market is supposed to take care of that...
We've cut our summer energy usage by over 30% with the house fan, btw. The air conditioner the previous owners installed isn't very efficient. We only ended up using the air conditioner three days this year, thanks to the house fan.
It's going to warm up my lawyer.