Technology’s Fingerprints on the Stimulus Bill - NYTimes.com

[dracodraconis]

Technology’s Fingerprints on the Stimulus Bill - NYTimes.com

The New York Times provides a review of Obama's proposed $800 billion stimulus package. In particular, they call attention to $7 billion being proposed for expanding high-speed internet into rural areas, $20 billion for the development of a smart power grid that would automatically load-balance (a must for broad implementation of aperiodic energy sources like wind and solar), and $20 billion to develop a digital health records system that could, if designed properly, reduce health care costs. It's far harder, however, to get support for a finanacial package that largely goes to tax cuts and infrastructure development than it was to pump money into banks and businesses.

Comments

[bluetourmaline.livejournal.com]

smart power grid that would automatically load-balance (a must for broad implementation of aperiodic energy sources like wind and solar)

Um, don't we have that? It's called "dispatchable generators". And "variable pricing for peak hours" --- that already happens in the wholesale market, so if a retail purchaser of electricity wanted variable pricing for peak hours, that would be purely a financial issue between them and their local distribution company, with no adjustments necessary to the grid.

The problem with wind, at least (dunno much about solar, there isn't much in Ontario) is that (a) it tends to blow during off-peak hours, exactly when electricity is least needed; (b) "fickle as the wind" is a cliche for a reason: Ontario, at least, is pathetic at predicting it, even using weather-forecasting systems: wind generators think that they're likely to contribute so many megawatts, and the grid plans out its dispatches with respect to that, and then they're wrong. Or they are not even part of the dispatchable generators, they're at the local level, and then the grid notices that it was wrong about expected load, and doesn't know whether it is because some substation's wind generator wasn't spinning and they have to draw power off the grid, or because more people than usual turned on their toaster ovens.

To load-balance something like a network of wind generators, you need some kind of reliably variable generator (one that can and will ramp up or ramp down at a moment's notice), and combustion is the best choice I can see currently for reliability; that or hydro with storage reservoirs, but during rainy summers such as 2008's, the reservoirs were near-overflowing and the generators went into must-run mode rather than being dispatchable.

If Obama's smart grid is something like Smart Grid Australia, then basically what it is doing is turning every retail customer into the equivalent of a player on the wholesale market --- metering load as well as generation, and giving the option of variable pricing. The problem with that, though, is that it's unhedgeable --- the price in Ontario, at least, can wander between $1998 and -$17 (yes, that's a minus sign) per megawatt, and the excitement and sense of danger of playing the power markets...is something not for every layperson.

(Yeah, I just spent three evenings straight reading a very detailed report addressing in part those very subjects, in case you didn't guess.)