Where do we go from here And

“ Where do we go from here? And where is HERE anyway? ? ? ” “Energy Leadership in the 21 st Century” State Energy Program’s 2000 All-States Meeting July 17 -20, 2000, Burlington, Vermont Bob Aldrich Supervisor, Internet Information Services and Web Development California Energy Commission E-mail: baldrich@energy. state. ca. us Website: www. energy. ca. gov

We have information overload! • Local newspaper(s) & National papers like WSJ, NY Times, Washington Post, LA Times • Hundreds of magazines and other periodicals • 3 to 20 local TV stations • 20 to 80+ local radio stations • Up to 100 cable channels or 300 satellite channels • 800 million publicly-accessible Internet pages • Myriad daily meetings • Friends, spouses, children ALL CRAVING OUR ATTENTION!!!

No wonder we want to run away! BTW: You can find out more about renting a condo at this tropical paradise by logging onto: www…. .

Let’s look at the challenges people face when they search for things on line. What if you were looking to buy something for Fido or Rover or maybe for Fluffy the Cat?

Just a few of the dozens of choices! + =

Or what about buying a music CD? Just a few choices….

Of course, that was last month. e. Bay just bought half. com for $340 million

It’s TOO, TOO confusing… No one really knows where to turn, and the search engines… DO THEY HELP? ?

Accessibility and Distribution of Information on the Web • Article written by Drs. Steve Lawrence and Lee Giles, NEC Research Center, Princeton, NJ • “Accessibility of Information on the Web, ” in Nature, Vol. 400, pp. 107 -109, 1999 • Obtain a copy by sending e-mail to: lawrence@research. nj. nec. com • Can’t get paper on line unless a subscriber to Nature.

Conclusions From Their Study • 85% of Internet users use search engines to find information. Consumers use search engines to locate and buy goods or to research decisions (such as choosing a vacation destination, medical treatment, election vote, or maybe energy efficiency? ? ? ). • The search engines are currently lacking in comprehensiveness and timeliness and do not index all sites equally. • The current state of search engines can be compared to a phone book which is updated irregularly, is biased toward listing more popular information and has most of the pages ripped out.

Study Conclusion • Search engine indexing and ranking may have economic, social, political and scientific effects. For example, indexing and ranking of on-line stores can substantially effect economic viability; delayed indexing of scientific research can lead to the duplication of work; and delayed or biased indexing may affect social or political decisions.

Search Engine Coverage Has Decreased • Search engine coverage relative to the estimated size of the publicly indexable Web has decreased substantially since December 97, with no engine indexing more than about 16% of the estimated size of the publicly indexable Web.

Unequal Access • Search engines are typically more likely to index sites that have more links to them (more ‘popular’ sites). They are also typically more likely to index U. S. sites than non-U. S. sites and more likely to index commercial sites than educational sites.

Out of Date or Can’t See Info • Indexing of new or modified pages by just one of the myriad search engines can take many months. • Most search engines can’t check databases, so if information is dynamically created, the search engines and Web spiders often cannot “see” that information.

Information Distribution • 83% of sites contain commercial content • 6% contain scientific or educational materials • Only 1. 5% of sites contain pornographic content

Millions of Pages • The publicly indexable Web contains an estimated 800 million pages (as of February 1999 — a long time ago in “web age”). • That encompasses about 15 terabytes (15 million megabytes) of information or about 6 terabytes of text after removing HTML tags, comments and extra “white space. ”

Low Metadata Standards • The simple HTML “keywords” and “description” metadata (structured data about data) tags are only used on the homepages of 34% of sites. • Only 0. 3% of sites use the Dublin Core metadata standard. (see: http: //purl. org/dc/)

Let’s Take A Look At What Search Engines Give Us • Search for words: “energy efficiency” • Search on 12 search engines: All the Web Alta Vista Ask Jeeves Encarta Google Hot. Bot Info. Seek Lycos Yahoo AOL. com Excite Netscape

All the Web (Fast Search) www. ussc. alltheweb. com • • 472, 056 documents searched EREN - U. S. DOE’s Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy Network Alliance to Save Energy ETSU (UK) (part of AEA Technology Environment) Energy Efficiency Best Practice Program (UK) CADDET Energy Efficiency (also a European site) Office of Energy Efficiency (Canada) Energy Saving Trust (UK)

Alta. Vista www. altavista. com • • • 167, 985 “pages found” EREN energy. copper. org (commercial site extolling virtues of copper wire) Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance World Energy Efficiency Assn. Alliance to Save Energy Efficiency Conservation Authority (New Zealand)

AOL. com (search engine) • • • 3, 031 sites listed Energy Efficiency Best Practice Programme (UK) Energy Saving Trust (UK) Solstice: Energy Efficiency Residential Energy Efficiency Database (Canada) BROKEN LINK World Energy Efficiency Association

Ask Jeeves www. askjeeves. com

Encarata On-Line Encyclopedia (www. msn. com) • • • Encarta article about transportation energy Link to “Energy Quest” website More articles Link to LBL Energy Saver website (http: //homeenerg ysaver. lbl. gov/) More articles Link to EREN

Excite www. excite. com • • • ? Sites in index – though CEC website is #10 on list CADDET World Energy Efficiency Assn. Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance Office of Energy Efficiency (Canada) Oak Ridge National Lab Energy Efficiency Conservation Authority (New Zealand)

Google www. google. com • • • 534, 000 documents EREN CADDET www. eco-web. com “chapter” on energy efficiency World Energy Efficiency Association Solstice: Energy Efficiency Oak Ridge National Laboratory Energy Efficiency

Google - New Search: “energy conservation” • • • 381, 999 documents Missouri Dept. of Natural Resources Energy Quest page on “saving energy Louisiana Dept. of Natural Resources ”Energy Conservation Enhancement Project” Energy Efficiency Conservation Authority (New Zealand) www. ecomall. com energy conservation links

Hot Bot www. hotbot. com • • • ? Sites in index EREN CADDET Residential Energy Efficiency Database (Canada) Oak Ridge National Lab Energy Efficiency Victoria (Australia) LBL Environmental Technologies Development Division

Info. Seek www. infoseek. com • • • 1, 168, 441 “matches” EREN World Energy Efficiency Association Appalachian Log Homes Oak Ridge National Lab Northwest Energy Efficiency Assn. CEERT - Center for Energy Efficiency & Renewable Technologies

looksmart www. looksmart. com • • • EREN Residential Energy Eff. Database (Canada) DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information’s Energy Eff. and Renewable Energy Database DOE -Landscaping for Energy Eff. Office of Energy Efficiency Services (Nepal)

Lycos www. lycos. com • • 4 “by user traffic”; 470, 142 “sites in catalog” EREN CADDET Residential Energy Eff. Database (Canada) Oak Ridge National Laboratory United Nations Report on Energy Efficiency in Asia and Pacific Region Energy Efficiency Forum 2000 Moving Markets for Energy Efficiencypromotes EE in developing countries

Netscape www. netscape. com • • • 115 “reviewed websites” SOLSTICE (solstice. crest. org) Editor’s Choice Better Buildings Interactive Energy Eff. Best Practice Program (UK) Export Council for Energy Eff. Netherlands Energy Research Foundation Energy Conservation Hawaii, LLC

Yahoo www. yahoo. com • • • ? Total number of sites “reviewed” Even more confusing unless you know how to use Yahoo. Give you 12 categories: US government, building construction, Business to Business, etc. Also has 223 site matches to energy efficiency

Do all these myriad sites help the consumer find information? • We doubt it… • There is just too much information, hard to even know where to begin. • The consumer / taxpayer / customer could spend hours, if not days, looking for good general information and / or specific info. • So, where should a person turn to find unbiased, accurate information about energy efficiency?

The debut of California’s Consumer Energy Center • Will debut in October 2000 in celebration of “Energy Awareness Month” • Funded by a PVEA grant from U. S. DOE • Spins off the Energy Commission’s website which began in December 1994 and kid’s website which began in October 1995.

Consumer Energy Center • A single stop for information about: – Energy choices in home, business / industry (water, agriculture, industrial energy) – Transportation energy choices (alt fuel vehicles, high efficiency vehicles, etc. – Renewable energy choices • Modules can plug into these three main areas, so that additional info can be added later.

Eventual Growth • May eventually spin off to a foundation that could take over the day-to-day operations and running • Collaborative efforts with other states and industry groups • It is a: Comprehensive Web PORTAL on energy

The new URL / Web Address www. consumer energy center. org (It’ll also be. com and. net) Debuts!! October 2000!!