Regarding a distributed power grid --

In rural areas where heating fuel (wood) is stored on location, your distributed grid is the ability to borrow a truckload of firewood from a neighbor on a neighborly basis. Wood does not scale particularly well as an electricity generating tool, nor would I suggest it, and there are substantial issues latent in having e.g. natural gas storage done on-site in dense neighborhoods vs. delivered in on-demand via pipeline.

Ed,

I've asked for replies to your "common sense" concerns.

As far as I know, nobody in rural America generates electricity with wood. So I am not sure how that comment relates to the topic. It does illustrate another form of cooperation for mutual security.

As for natural gas storage, nothing is risk free. Gas lines leak and explode. Fuel oil tanks fail and dump gallons of #2 oil into the enviroment. Hydrogen gas is safer as it is lighter than air and rises. Natural gas is more dangerous as it is heavier than air and sinks -- thus accumulating to explosive concentrations.

Many homes use bottled natural gas. I do not hear that it is exploding regularly. A friend says about gas heat fueled by piped in gas: "Go Modern, Go Gas, Go BOOM". Every year in the Greater Boston area, a few houses get blown to smithereens by gas explosions. Oil heat does not seem to blow up houses.

In general, we need a goal to have a carbon free energy system. This means the eventual phasing out of all natural gas and related carbon fuels thus making your concerns moot.

Thanks for the note.

Best,

Jock

A power grid is much different from a communications grid in many ways. The most significant way is that the power grid is strictly for the convenience of the users (i.e., it is the easiest, cheapest, least-polluting way to get electricity. If there were an easier way, we could simply disconnect the electric lines and do our own thing. Many hospitals, office buildings, universities have done exactly that using local co-generation facilities. Usually, this is done because the waste heat from the electrical generation is used to heat the buildings, saving considerable fuel cost.

So--why all the revolutionary fervor? The revolution is already here, and has been for years. Haven't you been keeping up? Of course, in many situations, the economic payoff isn't there, so co-generation isn't done everywhere.

Actually, as your own message suggests, even if local generation were economical, one would still like to add a distribution system to provide greater flexibility and reliability. Therefore, I would suggest that the revolution that may be required--if any-- is to insist that the distribution network be built and used.

I think that it is quite likely that a major source of electical energy 25 years from now will be solar photovoltaic panels on the rooftops of many homes and businesses. These will generate routine household electricity, which will need to be stored for days when the sun doesn't shine. Some storage may be done by the local homeowner, but longer storage needs will be met by large commercial storage facilities (as well as by regional import and export of electricity). The grid will be needed to meet this storage problem, and homeowners will need an assured source of power in times of need, as well as an assured market for their excess power.

Thus, even if all electricity is generated locally by homeowners who consume most of what they generate, they will benefit from a connecting grid and some massive centralized facilities for efficiency and flexibility.

The communications grid--on the other hand--needs to exist since the whole point of communications is to communicate with someone else. Whether the grid is wired or wireless, owned collectively or by a corporation, it must exist.

Regards,
Bob Matheson

Edited by author 03-18-2003 12:42 PM
I see the notion of a decentralized power grid as both do-able and desirable. At the same time, I think it faces quite a number of obstacles, from the economic to the - shall we say - socio-ideological. On the economic level, a confrontation not unlike the one over Open Spectrum is sure to take place. With one significant difference: sheer size and power of the players resisting change. According to the American Local Power Project ( http://www.local.org ) "Electricity is not just any industry. Economically, it is the largest industrial sector in America, comprising fully one third of the cash economy, dwarfing the airlines, telecommunications and other already deregulated industries with which it is often mistakenly compared." In less developed countries, the relative weight of the power industry would tend to be equal or greater, and the association of the owners &/or managers with a North-inspired centralized model would probably tend to be high, as most of the managers would have studied at developed country business schools, etc.

On what I call the "socio-ideological" level the most visible obstacle is the discomfort that humans feel at being "on the fringe". This is a problem, in this context, because the best and brightest ideas in the field of decentralized power have traditionally come from such "extravagant geniuses" as Nikola Tesla. Few "established" scientists and engineers wish to be associated with the work of Tesla, or any of his "followers". So these ideas remain largely unexplored. From what I understand, Tesla had devised a way to transport power wirelessly, by turning electricity in to dielectricity, which is conveyed by insulators, including air. That technology alone - if developed into a mature, ready-to-go product line would resolve half of the puzzle; i.e., how to set up quick and easy local networks for mutual "backup". On the other hand, his transmission and reception towers required sizable amounts of copper, so there might be limits to the viability of making millions and millions of them. Assuming it was viable, another thing would have to instantly change at that point: the notion of charging for the power. Juice would be - so to speak - floating around for anyone to grab. (Anyone, that is, who had plunked down the cash to buy a "transciever tower" for their home). Just as in the Open Sepctrum model, the idea would then be that the users would build the grid as required, and pay for it themselves. Therefore, they'd own it outright and would be free to share with their neighbors whatever power each of them generated "on premises".

On the generating end of things there are a number of ideas bouncing around that try to resolve the age-old conundrum of clean, abundant power. [For one example, see Alan Francoeur's low-drag generator posted at http://www.theverylastpageoftheinternet.co...ur/interference.htm ]. But there doesn't seem to be a sistematic effort to "debug" them or "shake them down" on a scale comparable to the Open Source Software movement. One reason for this, I think, is that the OSS folks had the advantage of riding over the work of more than 20 years previously sunk in by the US government, which provided them with the tool to collaborate across vast distances and timezones. Relatively little investment was required of the would-be participants, and most of it they had already made, i.e., a course in programming, a computer and a modem. In the case of the decentralized power grid, what is missing/required is the government-sponsored 20-year stretch, perhaps combined with disinterested efforts on the part of scientists and engineers. But there's no way to avoid the fact that when it comes to designing and building generators (as opposed to churning out computer code) one is dealing with physical, material objects, which cost money to acquire, machine, transport, etc. Even if the brainpower was provided "for free", there would still be a need for money to set up and operate one or more proper research facilities.

For that money to become available, a certain mindset would have to set in or "gel" on a sufficient number of "influential" heads. They would have to dare to realize that the man who designed the turbines at the foot of Niagara at the turn of the 20th Century couldn't possibly have been out of his mind. Instead, he was way ahead of his time. Ergo, what this imaginary group of influential people would need to do is provide the resources for humanity to get to work on catching up with Tesla, and others like him.
In a logical world, it would naturally be a consortium of "3rd World" universities that would accept the challenge. Since the density of the grid in that part of the world isn't that great, the resistance to change might not be so intense. And the demand for small-scale, decentralized power is clearly greatest in small towns and villages in India, China, Brazil, Indonesia, Egypt, and so forth. All of these countries have the brain power. Just recently CBS 60 Minutes did a segment on IIT (the Indian Institute of Technology). If I remember correctly, it indicated that more than half the students of this publicly subsidized, leading edge university get merrily brain-drained to "the North" upon graduation (where their talents are promptly put to "work" on new thin-film packaging for junk food, or the latest entertainment gadget).
Oh, well...

How does the notion of decentralized power interact with the concept of electrical utility cooperatives, an already prevalent form of energy sharing at the behest of members? In the case of the collectives, individuals have chosen to pool their resources to construct a commonly beneficial grid. If the grid was decentralized -- that is, if the collective was taken out of the picture -- would this be a gain for the former members? Or would they be forced into an energy-driven equivalent of a range war fought over access to water?

One of the inhibitors to adoption of any radical reorganization of resources is the time penalty paid while switch-overs occur. Presuming that the political will and finances can be mustered to build out a decentralized power grid, who will be paying redundant fees and realizing "old power" and who will most quickly be able to switch off "old power" onto "new power"? History guarantees that the parade will be led by large entities capable of muscling their way to the head of the line, just as has been the case with co-generation. Any externalities that pile up as a result will become the responsibility of the late movers -- no doubt, you and me.

The problem with all good ideas is inertia and the need for transcending the status quo, which only happens during or after major unsettlements: catastrophes, revolutions, natural disasters, wars, and so forth. If we can find a bridge, decentralized power is a very good idea...if.

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