Creating money out of tangible assets is nothing new. The idea to use energy as the basis of capital is novel, and this is the first project i've seen that tries to show how this might work.If you already have Kilowatt Cards to Authenticate:
Kilowatt Cards are gift cards that pay for 10 kilowatt-hours of electricity in any home utility account (including all taxes and fees) when REDEEMED here. The cards can be redeemed by anyone to pay for household electricity worldwide. Since they can be used to pay for anyone's electricity, they can also be used to barter for other things - resulting in an international store-of-value (assets) and a stateless medium-of-exchange (electricity).
To prove that a Kilowatt Card is real and active, enter the last six digits of its serial number in this form. If the number is active, two new digits will be returned that should be written on the card by hand, forming the end of a new six-digit number, while the first two digits are cancelled. The method creates a new serial number every time, while the old number is cancelled. So nobody holding a Kilowatt Card can use copies of it, since all copies will have a cancelled serial number after any one of them has been AUTHENTICATED
This way plain paper cards can be traded widely, yet proven real by anyone with access to the internet, before they accept it.
Despite the roughness of this project (his authentication process probably doesnt inspire trust), it's a great idea and one that could be expanded upon. he's trying to implement it in a way that gets the project off the ground quickly, and is a worthy experiment to illustrate how a money supply, oops, i mean gift card supply can be created.
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added 5/26
"The system has been operational since July 2007, when we gave away about 10,000 kWh (1,000 cards) at a Rainbow Gathering in Arkansas. Only 60 kWh of those have been redeemed so far.. The total amount in circulation today is about 30,000 kWh." - bob (founder of kiowatt cards)
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