Submitted by acohill on Wed, 08/18/2010 - 13:31
DefenseTech reports that a virus has been found in some SCADA systems. SCADA (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition) is the software used for managing electric power grids, water and sewer systems, and other utilities. So far, the infections have been found in utility departments in the Far East, where the SCADA computers are older and not well maintained. What is worrisome is that someone, or some organization, is targeting SCADA systems. There is a reason why the U.S. military is beefing up spending on cyberwar and cybersecurity; the risk to the U.S. economy if there was a widespread failure of utility systems because of a concerted virus attack would be enormous.
Submitted by acohill on Fri, 08/06/2010 - 09:08
Here is an article that alleges that Boulder, Colorado's SmartGridCity project is in deep trouble. The article has a long laundry list of problems, but what jumped out at me is the list of so-called "partners." If you look at the SmartGridCity Partners page, you can see the root problem of this project is too many cooks. Just the administrative overhead of supporting this list of high priced consulting firms would sink any project. And the descriptions that accompany each partner reads like one of those buzz-phrase generators you find online. Here are a sampling of the buzz phrases:
So you have at least seven companies with seven proprietary and very likely incompatible technology "solutions" that are going to use taxpayer dollars to try to do a mash up of their stuff that will somehow save money. These kinds of efforts never work, in part because if you start with seven complex technologies, it is impossible to make them less complex by combining them. Fifty years of software development studies have shown this over and over again. It's not that different than Fred Brooks' mythical man month treatise, in which he showed that adding more workers to a software project already late just makes it later--in large part because adding more workers makes the development process more complex. The same principle is likely at work here. Adding more complex power management software to an already complex design makes it even more complex and, as study after study has shown, more error prone.
Here at Design Nine, we call ourselves "broadband architects" or "information architects." We work the way the traditional architect works--we do a clean, coherent high level design for our clients first, develop the financing and funding strategies needed to show the client how it will pay for itself, and then and only then do we go out to vendors.
My guess is that Smart Grid City ended up with seven or more "design" firms all trying to gain an advantage for their own stuff, and Boulder ended up with a mess. It's as if you wanted a house built, and instead of having an architect produce the design and supervise the construction, you told the plumber, the carpenters, the electrician, and the drywall guys to get together and come up with something. It's called "design by committee," and it is never pretty.
Submitted by acohill on Fri, 05/14/2010 - 10:00
An automobile took down a large Amazon EC2 data center when it crashed into a utility pole near the facility and broke the power line. In a cascading failure, the Amazon data center's backup power system also broke, and the backup power did not work. This is one reason why data centers looking for new locations want to see business parks with power coming from two different sub-stations, and you get bonus points if you have feeds from two entirely different electric companies or grids.
Submitted by acohill on Fri, 08/14/2009 - 13:57
This Scientific American article discusses something I and others have been saying for years--the 100 year old electric grid we use for residential and business power was not designed for electric cars, which have extremely high amperage power draws. It is not so much that the grid can't handle one or two electric cars in a neighborhood; it can, and the load is not much different than things like welders or potter's kilns. But the grid was not designed for say 35% of residential homes plugging in their electric cars every evening at 5:30, at the very same time that residential electric use already peaks.
Part of the solution is broadband. Resilient, reliable fiber broadband connections to every home will enable electric providers to talk to home power controllers. The home power controllers will have enough smarts to turn the car charging on and off at the direction of the power company so that the load is balanced throughout the night, when electricity costs the least to generate.
That's right--broadband is part of the energy independence solution.
Submitted by acohill on Wed, 04/08/2009 - 08:50
Two different approaches to electric vehicle design hint at the changes we are going to see in the coming years as the price of fossil fuel heads up again. Segway has designed a more practical version of its two wheel all electric vehicle; the Puma lets you sit down instead of standing up, and has a cover that will provide at least minimal wind, sun, and rain protection. I never could understand how anyone wearing business clothes could be expected to commute to work using a Segway--you'd look pretty rumpled after spending fifteen or twenty minutes in a 20 mph wind.
Piaggio has designed a hybrid gas-electric scooter with a unique two front wheel design that makes it much easier to control and drive than a traditional two wheel scooter.
Both vehicles could be used for short commutes and short trips around town, like running out in the evening for bread and milk. Neither will replace automobiles, but the small size and low prices (compared to full size automobiles) suggests we'll see a lot of these being used as a second or third vehicle. And that means we need to pay attention to the electric grid, because all these electric vehicles have to be charged up. The big opportunity is to merge next generation Smart Grid designs with robust fiber broadband networks. Communities that start early down this path (like Danville, Virgina) will have a big leg up from an economic development perspective.
Submitted by acohill on Fri, 03/13/2009 - 08:08
This is an idea that seems so obvious that you wonder why it took so long for someone to actually develop it into a product. Fast food restaurants use hundreds of gallons of fry oil a week, and it used to be just hauled to the dump. Lately, it has been possible to sell it to owners of biodiesel vehicles, but that has not been convenient or easy.
Instead, the restaurants can now buy a refrigerator size unit that takes the fry oil straight from the cooker, filters it and burns it on the spot, creating both heat and electricity. The cogeneration unit eliminates the messy disposal or hauling of the oil, can produce up to 25% of the energy needed by the restaurant, and reduces dependence on foreign oil. In short, it's brilliant.
Submitted by acohill on Wed, 02/11/2009 - 09:44
This just might work. Walmart may sell an inexpensive electric car. The company already has a car parts department and a car repair department with garages and lifts, so taking on service and maintenance of one or two cheap electric cars would not be a stretch. I think that over the next five or six years, as older second cars in families wear out, many will opt for a cheap electric for around town errands. Electrics may be good for families with teen drivers--the slower, low performance vehicles will get them back and forth to after school jobs and friend's homes, but the cars won't be taking curves on back roads at ninety.
Hat tip: Ed Dreistadt
Submitted by acohill on Fri, 01/30/2009 - 10:29
A new report says more workers are employed in the wind-based power generation business than in the coal industry. Bad news for coal? Not necessarily, as coal will continue to be an important alternative to imported fossil fuels. Coal and nuclear will be important to support base load electric generating capacity, as wind and solar can't provide reliable 24/7 power.
The wind energy business is creating new manufacturing jobs in the midwest, west, and south, and the article notes that wind generation is adding a significant percentage of the new generating capacity right now. But wind still only supplies about 3% of the U.S. electric power, compared to coal's 43%, and some of the comments question the article's statistics, noting that it seems to be comparing coal mining jobs to wind manufacturing jobs.
Hat tip: Ed Dreistadt
Submitted by acohill on Thu, 01/15/2009 - 10:38
Here is a report from a northern California homeowner who installed a large array of solar panels on his home six months ago, and has been carefully tracking energy usage since then. Not surprisingly, the panels generated a lot of power during the summer months, and output has been much more variable as the angle of the sun has changed during the winter (meaning less power). More cloudy days in the winter also affects output. But a year ago, this guy had a $446 electric bill for the month of January, and has paid only $390 for the entire second half of the year. This does not factor in the initial cost of the solar panels, but hints at the substantial cost savings available--solar energy is free.
Keep in mind however, that solar, like wind, is not a complete energy solution. Solar panels generate no electricity at night, and wind turbines don't generate any electricity when the wind does not blow. Coal and nuclear power have to generate a substantial portion of the base load power in the U.S. to keep the economy working.
Submitted by acohill on Wed, 12/31/2008 - 09:08
LED lights are slowly improving, and a new manufacturing process using silicon instead of more expensive sapphire may bring down the cost of LED "light bulbs" within two years. Like record players, CD players, and VCRs, light bulbs will seem quaint and horribly old-fashioned to the next generation of kids, who will have grown up with LED lighting as normal.
Submitted by acohill on Fri, 11/14/2008 - 09:19
A newly-developed nano-engineered coating that can be applied to solar cells decreases reflectivity and allows the solar cell to use almost all of the sunlight hitting the surface--over 90% efficiency. In comparison, the best previous record for solar cell efficiency is about 60% utilization of light hitting the surface. The coating also allows cells to be mounted in a wider variety of orientations and still generate significant power.
While wind and solar technologies are improving, both have significant limitations. Solar panels don't generate any power at night, and wind turbines generate no power on windless days. Denmark, which generates a lot of power from wind turbines, had a stretch of 57 windless days that precipitated a nationwide power crisis. Long term, coal and nuclear power will have to continue to provide base load capacity in the U.S., and new, smaller nuclear reactor designs (less expensive and safer) will be a key part of reducing dependence on fossil fuels.
Submitted by acohill on Mon, 11/10/2008 - 08:53
Up in New Hampshire, a new electric vehicle is undergoing road tests. New Hampshire is not normally counted as one of the big auto-producing states, but the move to electric vehicles is likely to bring some new players into the field. As a side issue, the government might have more impact by giving a few million dollars to every firm in the U.S. working on electric vehicle technology rather than trying to bail out the high cost Detroit manufacturers.
Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway two wheel electric vehicle, is now road-testing a small electric car powered by batteries, with a Stirling engine that recharges the batteries as needed and can also run the heater and defroster. The Stirling engine runs on almost any kind of combustible fuel, including gas, diesel fuel, and biofuels. Kamen has stayed away from the more complicated hybrid designs that use both a gas engine and an electric motor to propel the car. In Kamen's design, the electric motor does all the propulsion, just like Chevrolet's Volt design.
Submitted by acohill on Tue, 10/28/2008 - 14:05
Electric utilities and electric car manufacturers are beginning to sit down and talk to each other. At the Austin Alt Car Expo, representatives from the two groups shared opportunities and concerns. One very big concern is how the electric grid will handle the additional power load represented by electric cars. The electricity does not come out of the air for free, and a few solar panels on the roof of such cars will not keep the batteries charged up if you have a commute of more than a mile or two each way.
The biggest problem is managing the time of battery recharging. If everyone drives their electric car home and tries to plug it in at 5:15 PM, the power grid would melt down. So what is needed is a smart grid that can talk to the car and schedule charging at a time when the electric grid can handle the load, like later in the evening.
And that means you need a very reliable and robust community broadband network that enables two way communications between smart house power controllers, smart car power controllers, and electric utilities. Design Nine is working with VPT Energy Systems to design this system.
Submitted by acohill on Wed, 10/08/2008 - 09:04
New Mexico continues to roar far ahead of the rest of the country with a wide ranging mix of game-changing economic development strategies. The state seems to be successfully attracting the brightest and best entrepreneurs and businesspeople in the country, and economic developers in the state are greasing the skids with investments in space, energy, and entertainment.
The latest news out of New Mexico is a firm called Hyperion Power Generation that has licensed nuclear power technology from Los Alamos National Labs. The company has designed a 30 megawatt nuclear power plant that can be delivered by tractor trailer--one tractor trailer--for the basic reactor component.
The system uses a form of nuclear fuel that self-limits the amount of heat generated, and the basic design is so safe that the technology has been licensed by the Federal government for unattended operation. The firm plans to manufacture 4,000 of the version 1 design, and expects to be able to deliver them in less than twelve months from receipt of an order.
Submitted by acohill on Mon, 09/22/2008 - 08:07
Google's power hungry servers continue to send the company out to look for cheaper sources of electric power. According to this article, the search giant is studying the idea of putting massive banks of servers on giant barges tethered in the ocean, where wave energy would generate the power needed for the servers.
Submitted by acohill on Tue, 09/16/2008 - 15:28
Zap electric cars will be built in Kentucky. They have been built in China, but the cost of hauling them from China has become too expensive. So manufacturing is moving closer to customers, and the Energy Economy is going to unfold much like this--getting energy and energy saving devices as close to customers as possible.
Submitted by acohill on Thu, 08/28/2008 - 09:05
The New York Times has a story about an emerging problem with wind power: the power grid can't handle it. Putting massive new energy generation sources out in the middle of nowhere won't work if you don't have high capacity power lines that can carry the electricity to where it is needed. So one of the hidden costs of wind power (or solar, or any other new generation source) is getting the power to the right place at the right time.
On a smaller scale, home-based electric generation projects (e.g. Vehicle To Grid (V2G), roof-mounted solar panels, etc.) are already looking at this problem. Design Nine is part of a team led by VPT Energy Systems that will be studying how to develop components and overall system designs for integrated energy systems that include plug-connected vehicles and distributed energy resources (supported by the Energy Department’s Sandia National Laboratories). Part of the solution, both on the small scale of home-based energy sources and on the large scale energy sources like wind farms and solar panel farms, is to have a robust and reliable broadband network that allows dynamic and interactive control of both electric loads and electric generation facilities.
Communities that begin addressing broadband and electric power as two parts of the same basic infrastructure challenge have a powerful economic development advantage, with the side benefit of potentially evolving quickly into a "green" community with renewable energy sources that help keep energy costs lower.
Submitted by acohill on Wed, 08/27/2008 - 07:48
This brief report discusses the fact that airlines are dropping nonstop flights even to and from major cities like New York. For business, this is devastating, as the increased cost of tickets can, to some extent, be moderated via other cost-cutting measures. But sending business people on trips that take all day instead of three or four hours is devastating, because you can't recover the lost time spent traveling.
Like it or not, business videoconferencing is going to become much more important more quickly, and bandwidth (or the lack of it) will determine how much it is used in any particular community or business area.
Submitted by acohill on Fri, 08/22/2008 - 09:25
In a series of broadband planning meetings earlier this week, I heard about several companies that were seriously considering moving their operations to another city if the local electric power infrastructure was not improved. The firms said they were experiencing multiple outages per month that often lasted an hour or more.
It is not just "old" manufacturing businesses that are vulnerable to electric power interruptions. Any firm that uses IT to manage their business (i.e. almost all businesses) can be affected by power outages, and sudden power outages can not only stop business and manufacturing processes, but can also stop ecommerce as well, if the servers taking orders are offline because of power interruptions.
Economic developers: When was the last time you asked your businesses about the reliability of their electric service? Do you want to lose a relocation prospect because of lack of quality electric power?
Submitted by acohill on Tue, 07/29/2008 - 15:26
Aptera Motors just raised $24 million in funding. The company plans to build a super-efficient car. That makes Aptera at least the second new car company in California, following in the footsteps of Tesla Motors, which makes the super-fast Tesla electric sports car. The increase in gas prices is going to create tremendous new business and economic development opportunities for communities that are out talking to their businesses and studying how to leverage energy assets and broadband.
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