The "McMansion" designs do sometimes leave me wondering whether it's all really necessary, not just from the energy consumption point of view but also from certain other aspects of the designs, e.g. providing one bathroom per bedroom. If I had all that space, I'd rather use it for storage (of which I never seem to have enough!).

Most homes here still get by with relatively modest power supplies compared to these sort of standards. 80 to 100A services (at 240V) are pretty much the norm for most new houses, and even then the extra power is often provided only to allow for the use of instant 9kW showers which are only running for a few minutes at a time. Many older homes, even those which are all electric for cooking, water and space heating, get by quite adequately on 60A services.

That's not to say that consumption here hasn't increased considerably in more recent years, for it has. Dishwashers, dryers, air-conditioning units, and fancy lighting are all far more common now than they were 30 years ago. The sheer number of extra houses being crammed into parts of the country which are already over-crowded (especially the southeast, around London) is taking its toll too.

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I watched last week, with utter incredulity, a Senior British Government Minister proposing "quack!quack! additional energy taxes on motor fuel to save the Planet, quack! quack! ".

Don't get me started on that one! [Linked Image] Gas is already over $6 per U.S. gallon, of which something like $4.70 is tax. That's on top of the $330 annual vehicle tax, not to mention insurance premium tax, M.o.T. fees, and 17.5% VAT (sales tax) on spares. And the roads around here (that the "road fund license" supposedly covers for maintenance) are rapidly becoming like something you might expect in the third world -- potholes, rough surfaces, edges overgrown, etc.