There is much talk of energy efficiency, but little of functionality on this website and I believe it might be appropriate to be provocative.

One of the previous posts was about UPS and their efficiency. Well, most UPSs are installed for a purpose, namely to provide continuous power. If they weren't there, every time we had a power failure, we obviously stop providing service (serious enough, but not catastrophic), but more seriously, the equipment being powered is unable to shut down correctly. Indeed the main purpose of most UPSs in IT infrastructure is to allow services to shut down cleanly so that they can be started more easily when the power returns.

To be a bit more provocative, I remember an IEC expert saying to me, I can make a 100% efficient electric oven, so efficient that it consumes no power. The only trouble is it forgot its original function - baking cakes.

Our society demands the functionality. No-one can realistically expect our society to apply reverse gear and return to the quality of living we had 100 years or even 10 years ago.

That being said, it is of course possible to use the energy intelligently. For example, we can ensure that the UPS is only used to supply essential equipment, allowing it to be more appropriately dimensioned. We can ensure that our electric oven supplies a maximum of energy to the cakes and as little as possible to the external environment. We could encourage oven manufacturers to get rid of the generally useless always-on electric clock which they build in.

Talking of clocks, see how many you have in your kitchen. You will see, when you have to change for Daylight Saving Time in a few weeks time. Does every single kitchen appliance really need a clock, or wouldn't a simple timer be more suitable for most cases?