Paul Raven @ 20-03-2008
What the hell is a “smart grid city”? [via Worldchanging]
Well, maybe you could call it “Infrastructure2.0″, but whatever you call it, it’s a new (and hopefully more sustainable) way of looking at the issues of providing utilities to urban areas. According to Xcel Energy:
“The next-generation electricity grid will allow our company to better meet growing demands, address environmental challenges, maximize available resources and optimize the entire energy system. Ultimately, a “smarter” grid helps us serve our customers by creating more options for managing personal energy use, habits and costs.”
All hot air and sales jargon, you might be thinking. Well, Xcel seem to be walking the walk as well talking the talk - they’re going to make Boulder, Colorado into their first Smart Grid City, with the first phase predicted for completion this August. [image by tanakawho]
I’m pretty pleased to see the energy industry acting on these sorts of ideas instead of just paying them lip service, and I hope something similar starts appearing over here in the UK. Perhaps where Xcel leads, others will follow and surpass.
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Tomas Martin @ 19-03-2008
With the sale of Bear Stearns for £2 a share on Sunday (it was worth £170 a share in April last year), the Credit Crunch claimed a high-profile casualty. But in the long run, what does a possible US and global recession bode, after things clear up? Some people think this may be the worst we get, others think there’s a fair few other banks and businesses looking shaky. However it continues, there’s no doubt that the markets are going to change following the collapse of a lot of mortage-based finance.
The crisis has been caused by an decrease in the enforcement on banking legislation. Without sufficient checks, financial companies offered loans to people who couldn’t afford it, then traded the loans like shares across the world economy. As lenders failed to pay up and defaulted, the companies who traded the paper behind the loans began to make losses and a lack of trust led to less liquidity, or money available for lending between firms. Bear Stearns was one of the companies most at risk, like Northern Rock here in the UK.
Many economists and analysts are starting to look at the repercussions of the credit crunch. Some say that the reduced interest rates by the Federal Reserve and Bank Of England will lead to inflation problems, especially with commodities like wheat, gold and oil recently at all-time highs. Others compare the crisis to other recessions around the world. Although Japan in the eighties and the Great Depression are scary comparisons to make, some say that Sweden in the early nineties is the best one to make, and a good example of how the Fed can get out of this situation: more regulation to clear that bad debt quickly.
But if we’re looking at ways to stimulate the economy, surely we should be looking at moving the focus away from the financial markets and ‘bubbles’? During the dotcom and housing bubbles, wages have stagnated and many have succumbed to borrowing large amounts to keep consuming. A possible solution: invest in new infrastructure for alternative energies, mass public transport and energy-efficient products. Jobs will be created to keep the economy afloat and the financial world could settle to a fairer and more balanced system.
[photo via Calculated Risk]
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Tomas Martin @ 04-03-2008
The ever compelling Alex Steffen over at WorldChanging is talking about Infrastructure a lot lately. A lot of the US and much of the world is built on an infrastructure of highways, electric grids and waterways, which are struggling to keep up with population growth and increased costs, especially of fuels. Whilst new technologies like superfast trains and solar panels are good, they need investment in the infrastructure for it to work - as seen by Britain having to spend millions to replace track for the Eurostar because Margaret Thatcher chose the cheaper infrastructure in the eigthies, whilst the rest of Europe put in place track suitable for what became the TGV.
There’s a lot of interesting ideas out there, from Alexander Trevi’s use of carbon-harvesting nanocrystals and radiation reprocessing to produce a green ‘New Chernobyl’, to architects IwamotoScott’s ‘Network Hydrology’ reimagining of a water and hydrogen-producing algae based 2100 San Francisco. There’s plans to artificially create a new river delta to protect the Louisiana coastline and Amsterdam might drain its canals to create a new underground subcity. Or what about BLDGBLOG’s idea to create housing projects in the same way people make zoos? By combining good design in new infrastructure with the inventions already out there we can start looking at a future way of living rather than just trying to extend the one we have beyond its lifetime. And is it coincidence that most of best ideas also look ridiculously cool?
[picture by IwamotoScott]
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Paul Raven @ 27-02-2008
It’s easy to forget how reliant we are on our technologies … until we are unexpectedly deprived of the means to use them, that is.
Deprived by … oooh, let’s say, an electricity grid fault that leads to an automatic shutdown at a nuclear power station and leaves a big chunk of Florida completely blacked out for an evening? [image by dogfrog]
[As a side note, I never knew that nuclear reactors could just be switched off. Disconnected from the grid, sure, but switched off?]
And that’s just one little hardware failure, hence quickly fixed. But imagine for a moment another highly electricity-dependent country, like the UK for example, being hit by some sort of environmental disaster to which it isn’t accustomed, which causes a large number of grid hardware problems which are hard to trace and fix in the absence of the electricity they provide …
… I think we have a potential cookie-cutter techno-thriller movie plot, folks! Now, who shall we cast as the plucky Prime Minister?
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What the hell is a “smart grid city”? [via Worldchanging]
