Comments on: Stimulate This: Build the Grid First

By: lovable liberal

lovable liberal — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 17:15:59 +0000

Hey, in his inaugural address, Barack Obama just mentioned the grid. How’s that for influence!

By: Kaleberg

Kaleberg — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 04:08:01 +0000

Other possible ideas include:

- more fiber optic cable and high speed internet access
- developing and building power storage facilities (Time shifting is a big problem.)
- building solar and wind power systems (This will push the technology and drive the price down.)
- a career GP medical education and clinic program to generate salaried MDs and RNs without debt
- deprivatizing our military’s support functions (More privates, less privatizing.)
- rebuild the student loan program with direct government loans and more grants and programs for loan forgiveness in exchange for service (see the MD thing above)
- support the local food movement and local agriculture as part of the school lunch program

The trick is that not everything has to work. Ever since the 13th amendment, only the government can capitalize trained and healthy people. Even if the government muffs things here and there, it can make out big time from the side effects.

By: Spiv

Spiv — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 15:16:17 +0000

Most grids are also not set up to handle a house that generates more power than it consumes. There are fortunately a few areas in Florida set up for individuals “selling power back,” but it’s sparse. Really makes individual power generation (which I still believe is the ultimate answer to our problems) much less attractive.

Why individual? Or even per-neighborhood? Because the loss of energy due to resistance over the lines is actually very significant. You shorten the lines, the power you generate does more.

I also think de-centralizing our automotive industry would do us some good. Imagine a country where dozens of smaller businesses made cars of all types instead of the big-3 basically trying to not hand it over to japan completely. Much more innovation, much more design prowess, and much, much less bureaucracy loss in the making of.

By: Michelle S

Michelle S — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 21:50:24 +0000

To heck with a “dramatically enhanced” grid–at this point I would settle for an adequate grid. The current US power grid is hopeless, and is due for a major, catastrophic failure pretty much any day now. Generation’s not much of a problem, but transmission, as you say, is a mess. “Woefully inadequate” comes to mind as a relevant phrase. Of course, one small thing that would help is if the NIMBY whiners would shut up when power companies try to install lines near their precious houses. I wonder how quickly those people would change their minds if they had to put up with something like the Northeast Blackout.

For the record: I am a bit biased about this, because a) my uncle was president of a utility company, so I learned a lot about the nightmares those companies have to go through when trying to expand their systems, and b) I grew up with power lines in my backyard, and I turned out just fine. Or maybe I didn’t. Maybe that’s why I’m so odd. Hmm, maybe I’m not the best one to make this argument…