It's good to practice being bold in a sandbox, that's what they're for...so here it goes. sandboxes are significant in many ways, including being used as an area to play for children and sometimes even confused adults. However, with children one must watch out for sand tossing. The sport of sand tossing can blind the other person who gets sand in his/her eye(s); this blindness can be temporary or permanent. Overall, sandboxes have many benefits but are also flawed. Remember, try not to toss your sand and do not confuse the sand toss with the Sand Toad.
Negawatt power is a theoretical unit of power representing an amount of energy (measured in watts) saved. The energy saved is a direct result of energy conservation or increased efficiency. The term was coined by the Chief Scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute and environmentalist, Amory Lovins in 1989. Negawatts currently cannot be precisely measured, only theoretically. However there is some controversy surrounding the negawatt Market.
A negawatt market can be thought of as a Secondary market, in which electricity is allocated from one consumer to another consumer within the Energy market. In this market, negawatts could be treated as a Commodity. Commodities have the ability to be traded across time and space, which would allow negawatts to be incorporated in the international trading system. However, creating negawatt markets would be very difficult to achieve on a large-scale.
The concept of negawatt power is being implemented in several states in the United States and is emerging as an international strategy to reduce energy consumption. Electric companies are beginning to inform their customers on how to use energy more efficiently, and thus increase the amount of negawatts. The negawatt market has gained some recognition on an international scale; however, the market is still a controversial proposal that has not yet fully developed.
Many argue positively for the negawatt market by taking note of the incentives: receiving money, reduction of national energy dependency, and the local electricity deregulation within certain nations or states. As for the cost incentive; those who produce negawatts or simply conserve energy can earn money by selling the saved energy. Some argue that negawatts can potentially help a country decrease its dependency on oil. The negawatt market could help nations or states obtain a deregulated electricity system by allowing another market to purchase electricity from.
The negawatt market also has many drawbacks. Some of these drawbacks include the difficulty of creating a negawatt market and the expense of Efficiency. Due to the inability of measuring a negawatt, lack of negawatt measuring devices, and the potential necessity of electricity price caps, some argue that a negawatt market would be very difficult to implement. There are also negative cost, technical, and time implications on manufacturers, electricity providers, and the consumers. Some argue that a negawatt market would allow electricity to be treated as a product rather than a service, in which consumers would get paid for not using something that they do not own.