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White House To Announce IT-Powered Smart Grid
FizzaNawaz writes "On Monday, the Obama administration is preparing announce the next steps that the US will take to build its 21st century electric grid, and IT is expected to play a big part in the plans. The White House is hosting a 90-minute media event called 'Building the 21st Century Electric Grid' and is releasing a new report on what it will take for lawmakers and the private sector to come together to solve this aspect of the energy challenge."
as former manager of the engineering/design group of a power switching systems company, I know a bit about smart grids. But how in the U.S. are we going to get away from the evil of the U.S. government and the mega-corporations that have it in its pocket? A smart grid in *those* hands becomes a tools of yet more artificial scarcity creation, more throttling/restrictions/capping, and a "kill switch" for the government. Instead of bringing online the cheap abundant energy of this earth, we'll be rationing the fossil fuels for another century. The first priority isn't a "smart grid", it's alternative energy (and integrating that into the "dumb grid" by decades old means works well enough). This "smart grid" and all this wailing about conserving is at this point in time a distraction from the core issue, that there is no shortage of energy on planet earth. A health growing civilization uses energy; we should be *increasing* our use of energy, not decreasing it.
if you design a system that can be described as 'you can gamble with someone else's money all you want - if you win, it's all yours, if you lose, we got you covered' you seriously blame people who exploited the system? It was an obvious and perfectly rational thing to do. When there is no fear of loss, riskier behavior is unavoidable as there are only 2 options left on the table: a win and a fucking big win. It's universal, that's how people behave - be it sandbox, casino, stock market.
When the building that collapses, architects and engineers responsible for shoddy work have their asses dragged to court, while lawmakers producing crap legislation that brings whole nations to the knees walk free.
Letting banks fail was a right thing to do - it would be painful but it would instill fear in the hearts of banksters. Bailouts made them feel like gods who have the whole world by the balls and now they take the full advantage of the fact