The Grid, Our Cars, and the Net

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

The Grid, Our Cars, and the Net

Posted by kdawson on Saturday May 9, 2009 @12:32PM from the one-idea-to-link-them-all dept.

Wired is running a piece on the big idea of Robin Chase — the founder of Zipcar — that we need to build our smart power grid on open standards and include cars as nodes in a mesh network. "'Today in Iraq and Afghanistan, soldiers and tanks and airplanes are running around using mesh networks,' said Chase. 'It works, it's secure, it's robust. If a node or device disappears, the network just reroutes the data.' And, perhaps most important, it's in motion. ... Build a smart electrical grid that uses Internet protocols and puts a mesh network device in every structure that has an electric meter. Sweep out the half dozen networks in our cars and replace them with an open, Internet-based platform. Add a mesh router. A nationwide mesh cloud will form, linking vehicles that can connect with one another and with the rest of the network. It's cooperative gain gone national, gone mobile, gone open."

3 of 222 comments (clear)

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

Re:One thing of note by Anonymous Coward · 2009-05-09 14:06 · Score: 5, Interesting
And why you'd mount it on a car, I'm not sure: the car itself doesn't have too much data to transmit
Some ideas:
- car in front to the car behind: I hit the breaks, and am coming to a sudden halt. Break now, or you'll hit me;
- car behind to car in front: I'm accelerating and taking you over. Don't change lanes;
- car to other cars on the road: my tires lost grip at [GPS coordinates]. Forward to other cars that road is slippery there;
- car to the police: I've been in an accident at [GPS coordinates]. My driver's vital signs are fluctuating.
And for some privacy nightmare:
- I think my driver is drunk. I'd better call the cops
Re:Sure, but by shentino · 2009-05-09 14:14 · Score: 3, Interesting

Cars are not inherently inefficient.
And neither are SUV's.
The energy expenditure comes from moving mass, be it of cargo, passengers, or vehicle.
An SUV is a gas-guzzler when used for just a few folks, but it can't be beat if you have heavy and/or bulky cargo to carry. If you have a big family and go on camping trips frequently, an SUV is probably the best way to do transportation. Whether said family should be big enough or go on enough camping trips to make an SUV cost effective to begin with is another matter altogether.
Public transportation or even bicycles are a good thing. Only economics and personal greed stand in the way.
It's one kind of efficiency to reduce energy consumption for a given task. It is quite another to decide if that task should be performed in the first place.
The earth is capable of healing itself if pollution is generated no faster than it can be metabolized away.
It's every earthling's obligation to not harm the earth. However, it's only due to greedy human nature that "what's in it for me" ruins the economics of it. If everyone cared about the common good (cooperated) instead of themselves (defected), then the Game Theory of Life would benefit all.
Pollution is nothing more or less than Tragedy of the Commons.
Re:Sure, but by driptray · 2009-05-09 20:31 · Score: 3, Interesting

Regarding the US: Mass transit is fine for many but certainly not all people living in urban areas, a lot fewer people who live in the suburbs, and almost nobody who lives in rural areas. The nearest grocery store to my house is 18 miles away. Mass transit would be an extremely inefficient method of transport out here.
If you build roads and no transit you get the US-style sprawl you describe. If you build transit and only minimal roads you get high-density transit-friendly development.
The transport infrastructure "drives" the style of city you get. Build it and they come.