Microgrids May Provide Distributed Energy 159
jobcello wrote to mention a BBC article discussing a new technique for power distribution that might provide electricity using a series of small "microgrids", in a manner similar to peer-to-peer software. From the article: "'This would save something like 20 to 30% of our emissions with hardly anyone knowing it ... A microgrid is a collection of small generators for a collection of users in close proximity ... It supplies heat through the household, but you already have cables in the ground, so it is easy to construct an electricity network. Then you create some sort of control network.' That network could be made into a smart grid using more sophisticated software and grid computing technologies."
wow, they have it all worked out! (Score:2, Interesting)
What sort, exactly; and, will it run Linux?
* * *
Why do sentences like that stick out and yell "inexperienced ding-dongs at work" ??
This would be cool (Score:5, Interesting)
Electrical and Communications grids behind the tim (Score:3, Interesting)
Slightly Related - Fuel Cell Tech (Score:3, Interesting)
In either case it would allow for what I believe is the greatest hinderance to this technology, true energy competition.
Think about it, your energy costs would be completely independent of where you live (except for shipping costs). We could build clean energy supply stations where they will be most effective (say the desert for example) and then contain and ship that energy anywhere using fuel cells.
There are a few hurdles to overcome such as local power monopolies and putting protections in place to make sure 1st world countries aren't just importing from poluting energy sources in 3rd world countries.
But when the technology becomes marketable, this will be a real possibility.
Been there, got that (Score:3, Interesting)
Holy cow (Score:1, Interesting)
hope it's 'open' (Score:2, Interesting)
Distributed vs Centralized (Score:3, Interesting)
I keep hearing that 1 large electric plant is better to power transportation than a million tiny gasoline powered generators. In fact, I hear that in here quite regularly.
Why the dichotomy?
Will never happen (Score:3, Interesting)
Nice idea - I have heard that transmission takes about 20-30% of our electrical output (especially when California gets its electricity from the Northern Oregon border, if not even farther away) - so anything to move the generation plant closer to the people that actually use the electricity would be a huge benefit.
Indeed, microgrids aren't efficient (Score:4, Interesting)
We could use high temperature superconductors, fission reactors and with fusion later when they get it to work, and a lot of clearing of the way by the federal government for deployment which is now held up by people using the environment as a smokescreen when what it comes down to is a lot of NIMBY and more to the point a bountiful opportunity for pitiful and pathetic unimportant people to make themselves feel important.
I live in a state where every highway project takes years longer and millions more because the enviros hold up everything *after* the damage is already done until they've milked out the publicity for themselves and finally it gets done in the end and there was no change and nothing saved in terms of environment and plenty of time and money wasted. All for their inane ego festivals.
Right now those same imbeciles are doing everything they can to keep the power transmission companies from fixing outdated and antiquated transmission lines and equipment which first keeps efficiency low and cost of the power transmission high, second it keeps jacking up the danger of massive local outages every year, third it increases the danger to the workers who maintain the system, fourth it increases the chance of creating a regional chain reaction outage, and fifth it increases the chance of a catastrophic failure on one of the big circuits going through the woods and starting a fire.
They are also trying everything they can do to prevent us from tying into regional grids through the west side of CT into New York and across the sound to Long Island. And lastly doing all they can to stand in the way of a gas tanker and pipeline facility. The sanity of putting liquid natural gas ships more than ten miles offshore is obvious in this new age of mega-terrorism and conversely the insanity of making the tankers put into ports near population centers equally obvious. They just don't care. It's all about them.
The best thing we can do with our end of things as consumers is insulate, make efficient use of what we consumer, and use solar electric, thermal, and hydro *where* economical and efficient on our homes. When superconductive storage systems finally come around, we can store the energy compactly that way onsite and until then, unless we want to deal with the danger of poisonous battery chemicals and five thousand pounds of them per home, we're better off simply having a system where we use the energy we generate first and the main grid's power secondly.
But generators aren't going to cut it. We're going from a few hundred stations to a few million and with less efficiency and more pollution and no inspection. Tack on inspection and you can add the psycho enviro leftists to the far right terrorist under every bed paranoids as one more group pushing us closer to a police state; no way would they let fossil fuel generators increase like that without mandating mandatory inspections on your property at any time for any or no reason with no prior notice and reserve the right to shut you down whenever they felt like it.
I don't see a need to create a massive new intrusion on our rights. Like I said, insulate, make efficient use, be efficient in generation where it is fitting to generate it yourself.
Fittingly a lot of the enviros of today were the Mother Earth News types of twenty-five years ago advocating that we all use wood and coal stoves, forge and smelt our own metals, and operate pig farms to feed methane stills. Their former zeal for old low tech is utterly incompatible with their stated beliefs of today. Much like the pictures of them in mullets, gold chains, and neon orange leisure suits were twenty-five years ago.
Actually... (Score:4, Interesting)
Already In Use (Score:3, Interesting)