http://push.pickensplan.com/forum/topic/show?id=2187034:Topic:1306317
Countdown to 1,000,000,000; twelve.
Countdown to 1,000,000,000; twelve.

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Jim Opelt

Shawn, Frank, Boone and all,

There is one major flaw in this whole process and it stems from the misconception that we need to replace our existing transmission grid. WE HAVE PLENTY OF GRID CAPACITY NOW. All we need to do is to use it intelligently. The fear of this cost has many people questioning the PickensPlan as well as other plans. This fear is also playing into many official planning budgets. In the same way that the PC army interconnected themselves and overtook the mainframe industry, there is an army of devices just waiting for the market opportunity to make better use of the grid power and capacity we have today.

There are devices that can be programmed to watch an online real-time, variable price to decide how aggressively to use it\’s energy. There are devices and whole systems that can generate power at varying levels dependent on such a price as well. There are even storage devices that can fully switch from charging themselves to producing power back to the grid. The plugin hybrid automobile is one public example of this.

Publishing this price could be as simple as a local distribution company aggregating their current demand, availability and load capacity into a live consumer price and putting that on a web site. Simple and inexpensive with the amount of automation in place in most existing utilities today.

However, without the public\’s input, the preliminary debates are being dominated by the utility companies which feel they need to be in charge of our private devices. They are pushing for rules that allow them to make the actual decisions of when your home uses more or less power for devices they choose. For this inconvenience, the consumer would get a few dollar rate cut. A much better system is to present the live price and allow the consumers to adopt increasingly more equipment to take advantage of this feature. In this way, consumers spending the most to upgrade or add renewables will benefit the most while the others will only see an total monthly bill that trends with the average grid condition. As more people adopt more equipment, that price will trend downward, potentially reaching the fixed costs of the distribution grid itself. In this unlikely but possible event, it would be a result of it\’s consumers all producing their own power, and the distribution company would become simply a RE-distribution company. A smart grid would be self balancing and would not care how the distribution company was shifting it power around. The people would be indirectly in control of their prices by how much they conserved or generated.

The grid could handle up to three times what it can now without upgrading. The cost to taxpayers would be negative. Overloading would be a thing of the past because load predictions would be simplified. Brown outs and black outs would be nearly non-existent, but if the did occur, they could be avoided by those willing to pay temporarily extreme prices in the case of emergency power.

Without this sort of backup power source, the utility companies will be successful in mandating that we pay them to maintain a full reserve of natural gas power plants that will rarely be needed. This is because the variability of wind and solar does not allow for a 100% guarantee of power production anywhere. In this scenerio, the green / renewable / clean power movement will have most of its budget soaked up by unnecessary expenses. This is partly the reason why the power companies promote wind and PV solar. It\’s because with those two and no smart grid, they stand to maintain their monopoly on transmission lines and on generation stations, but they will also lose the majority of their fuel costs. How sweet that would be for them?

This issue is too important to not have public awareness. I\’m sure no one would want to pay trillions of dollars for a grid once they find out it wasn\’t needed. With the amount of devices able to take advantage of this, jobs will be created, energy use will drop, fossil fuel dependence will drop, prices will drop and we\’ll begin to see similar features in energy that the internet has provided to the computing industry.

This is the single most important and most often missed topic of the entire energy crisis and public awareness is critical. Let\’s get people talking about it. If anyone desires more information, please contact me or read my blog posts. You\’ll also find a more comprehensive plan for energy independence that picks up where the Pickens Plan leaves off.

Todd McKissick
mckissick(at)gmail.com
(402) 223-8041

The Pickens Plan is the only viable plan for this country that I have seen that makes any sense and will attack so many of our problems. Just think about how good our economy would be if we were in the midst of the transition now with all the new jobs and optimism it would bring to this country……………..just think!

It\’s beyond me why someone with so much money would waste their dollars with TV spots crying about the broken promises of the government since Jimmy Carter in regards to alternative energy. You tell me why, we, as Americans, need the government for anything, especially something we have been doing in our collective garages since Ben Franklin made his first pair of glasses. Your buddies over at Chesapeake Energy want cars to run on their products which in turn puts money into their pockets. So build them. I’ll be first in line to buy one. You folks need to get off the government\’s back waiting for them to become the solution and do what the rest of us have been doing since we were big enough to swing a hammer. Get out in your garage and do it yourself. If you guys don\’t know where to start, I\’d be happy to come show you. Just let me know in advance, as I’ll have to take some leave time.

Frank Piper piperfj82@yahoo.com
USN Special Operations
1490 Kentucky Ave
Sanford, NC 27332
760-622-5261