Re: Smart Meters in communities | <– Date –> <– Thread –> |
From: Valerie McIntyre (valerie333windsong.bc.ca) | |
Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2011 17:57:33 -0700 (PDT) |
Thanks, Hans. I appreciate your understanding of the smart grid and your concern for our future energy needs. I have a couple questions for you: Re: *"the grid must become able to shift electricity back and forth" * How will this "smart" back & forth shifting of electricity impact the health and longevity of living organisms? The biological risk aspect is missing from your analysis. As far as I know, there are no *independent* studies showing wireless technologies are safe and that's my main concern about having wireless routers and smart meters in community, especially when we claim to be modelling sustainability. Sustaining what? Currently, farm animals, whales, birds and bees are under stress from wireless radiation, and we have rising rates of brain tumors and childhood leukemia. Re: *" ... the introduction of the policies and reforms necessary to keep this a livable planet."* IMHO, the Smart Grid will have to get a whole lot smarter before it can sustain a liveable planet. My hope for the future is not in the Smart Grid, but in New Energy Movement inventions. We need to demand access to the clean, cheap, harmless energy technologies that are being kept from the mainstream market by vested interests. ... back to the building-consensus process. I'd appreciate hearing about/from other communities engaged in this discussion. :-) Valerie From: ehrbar (ehrbargreenhouse.economics.utah.edu) Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2011 08:34:27 -0700 (PDT) Smart meters are part of the smart grid, which is the electric grid of the future. Renewable energy is distributed, while fossil electricity is centralized. The grid therefore, instead of distributing electricity in a one-way shower-like distribution from big centralized producers of power to many consumers of power, the grid must become able to shift electricity back and forth between many so-called prosumers, who produce electricity with wind and solar power and consume it for their home use. Another feature of the electricity supply of the future is the need for more coordination between production and consumption of electricity. For instance the defrost cycle of the refrigerator, which uses a lot of power, should be scheduled at times when there is an excess power in the grid. Many other examples like that, some of it is already being done today with the scheduling of irrigation pumps for agriculture. For all this, the electric grid must be integrated with modern information technology, you need smart meters and smart applicances. The smart grid is an electric grid which at the same time acts as an internet for all the devices that produce, consume, or store electricity. Many electric utilities resist the introduction of the smart grid, because they want to remain the sole suppliers of electricity and they do not want to use this part of the business to distributed small suppliers. They are trying to scare consumers by saying: if you have a smart refrigerator, the electric utility can see how much food you have in your refrigerator, and they will take your children away from you if they think there is not enough food in the refrigerator. This all is just scare stories, smart applicances are not wired to check for food in the refrigerator but to optimize the timing of electricity consumption, and all this can be overridden by the consumer for a price. These scare stories are similar to global warming denialism, invented by the fossil industries to retard the introduction of the policies and reforms necessary to keep this a livable planet. Hans G Ehrbar Wasatch Commons, SLC UT
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Re: Smart Meters in communities Valerie McIntyre, July 9 2011
- Re: Smart Meters in communities Valerie McIntyre, July 10 2011
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Smart Meters in communities ehrbar, July 11 2011
- Re: Smart Meters in communities Sharon Villines, July 11 2011
- Re: Smart Meters in communities Doug Chamberlin, July 11 2011
- Re: Smart Meters in communities joyce thorn, July 11 2011
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