[sudo-discuss] Resilience: Re: Power grid: the internet of electricity:

Tue Mar 26 22:25:05 PDT 2013

 I expect the University of California system to be dismantled, destroyed,
made fairly worthless in the next 10 years. it makes me sad.

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 6:58 PM, Anon195714 <anon195714 at sbcglobal.net>wrote:

>
>
> Resilience is the ability of a system to withstand shocks and "black swan"
> events.
>
> Right now we are seeing the wholesale destruction of systems that in the
> past have been far more resilient.  This is being done in the name of
> profit one one hand, and convenience on the other.
>
> There is no substitute for wires to carry electricity.  Nicola Tesla's
> broadcast power experiments in Colorado Springs caused disruptions in
> nearby cities similar to what would occur from large solar flares. On a
> small scale it can work, such as for resonant charging stations for
> electric vehicles, built into every parking space with a meter (deposit $3
> to park, and optionally another $3 for a quick wireless recharge).  But it
> is highly likely that injecting huge quantities of energy into the
> atmosphere, on the scale required for industrial civilization (think of
> where your fork and spoon come from) would have unforeseen and probably
> destructive ecological consequences.
>
> So between here and some hypothetical Mr. Fusion machine in our basements,
> we're stuck with wires.
>
> The question is how to manage those wires so they, and the rest of the
> power control infrastructure, don't become high-value targets.
>
> The simplest solution from an engineering perspective, is neighborhood
> power.  Every block has its own grid, with solar roofs on every house, a
> small battery pack in every house, and connections to the larger grid or
> perhaps a shared natural gas turbine or nuclear battery of about 30 to 50
> KW output.  Now try to get that to happen with the present real estate
> situation: it's a non-starter.  A selfish ass halfway down one street,
> would be sufficient to block it.  Zoning codes wouldn't even know what to
> do about it.
>
> Municipal ownership of the wires on public rights-of-way would be a great
> thing.  Now try getting the voters to approve an eminent domain buy-out of
> PG&E's wires, or an expensive project to run all new wires under the
> streets.
>
> The blunt fact is, WE the geeks, the engineers and technicians, builders,
> makers, and hackers, have the smarts and the skills to come up with
> something that will work and that will stand up to shocks.  BUT the hands
> that control the money flows have no interest or incentive to let us do
> so.
>
> This doesn't even require overt malevolence, just a "business as usual"
> and "ho-hum" attitude, of the kind that is common among people who have
> never worried about putting food on their own tables, much less considered
> what life would be like with frequent power outages (some of them lasting
> hours, some lasting days or weeks).
>
> So frankly I'm at a loss for a conclusive answer to this one.
>
> When it comes to resilient telecoms, we can set up community mesh and back
> it up with small cheap solar panels to keep it running during power
> outages.
>
> But when it comes to power as such, for lights and fridges and cooking,
> there is no equivalent of community mesh.  Yet.
>
> There are times when I think we'll just have to go through a major
> catastrophe before we realize that we have to build resilient
> infrastructure.
>
> It took the Loma Prieta quake and videos of sections of the Bay Bridge
> collapsed, before California got off its collective arse and built a new
> span.  But there are other instances where entire bridges, not maintained
> due to stingy taxpayers and pandering politicians, simply collapsed, even
> during rush hour.
>
> This one happened five years ago:
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C31IlOHNzbM
>
> If Al Qaeda or North Korea or a Hayward Fault quake hit the "smart grid,"
> there won't be any dramatic video.  There'll just be darkness and food
> going bad in our fridges.
>
> Perhaps that would encourage people to go out at night and gaze at the
> sky.  Perhaps the awesome view of the Milky Way in all its splendor, would
> inspire a new interest in space exploration, and with it, a new interest in
> science and technology generally.
>
> In any case it would be a good thing if the members of Bay Area
> hackerspaces could put our heads together to come up with some practical
> solutions to this one.
>
> -G.
>
>
>
> =====
>
>
>
> On 13-03-26-Tue 5:28 PM, Anthony Di Franco wrote:
>
>  To be clear, I don't mean to say "no grids!1!!1!!!" but just "use
> large-scale grids only for what they're best for in the context of a
> broader heterogeneous system, not for almost everything as they are now,
> and take into account in a rigorous way overall system efficiency and other
> concerns like vulnerability to failures both routine and rare and
> corruptibility of the social systems that grow up around the technical
> systems."
>
>  I remember discussing these points a few times in the past with you,
> George, and Hol, and others around sudo room; might we like to get some
> documentation together on interesting specifics? A section of the wiki
> maybe, where we can throw ideas up about the details and see what sticks?
>
>
> On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 5:06 PM, Anon195714 <anon195714 at sbcglobal.net>wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> A lot of the arguement against power grids is ultimately rooted in
>> opposition to having our energy supply controlled by distant corporations
>> whose decisions are not sustainable and not in our interests.
>>
>> I agree that over-dependence on greedy corporations for vital
>> infrastructure, merely for the sake of convenience, is a shortcut to
>> servitude.  Google is the worst offender, with its seductive Gmail and
>> Google Voice offering "convenience" in exchange for intensive and intrusive
>> surveillance, not only of those who use the services, but of everyone they
>> communicate with.  (Worst of all, Google Glass: "become a volunteer
>> surveillance drone!")
>>
>> The model we should be looking toward, to manage the power grid, is one
>> of municipally-owned transmission infrastructure (the wires along the
>> streets), and diversification of power producers (from individual
>> households to the existing power utilities).  Everyone would be paid the
>> same rate for power they "upload" to the grid, and everyone would pay the
>> same rate for power they "download."  This would immediately level the
>> playing field and provide an enormous incentive for all manner of renewable
>> and new-tech power generation.
>>
>> Further, the municipal ownership model should also apply to the wired
>> telecoms grid: telephone and internet.  (Even your mobile device is only
>> "wireless" for the last half mile at most; the rest of the way it's as
>> wired as my antique dial phones.)  All of these things are using the public
>> rights-of-way along the streets; they are arguably public rights-of-way in
>> themselves, and as such, should be owned by the public.
>>
>> The municipal internet of electricity would entail each local power
>> producer (household or larger) having small storage capacity on-site, and a
>> switching synchronized inverter to connect to the grid.  An onboard
>> microprocessor with an analog voltage sensors would monitor line power to
>> determine when power should be uploaded to the grid or downloaded from the
>> grid.  Simple "net metering" would keep track of the billing.
>>
>> The small decentralized battery packs would act primarily as buffers, to
>> level out power production and consumption among users.  Overnight and over
>> multiple cloudy days, and during peak demand hours, the decentralized solar
>> would be supplemented by other power sources such as micro-reactors and
>> natural gas turbines.
>>
>> The uniform pricing mechanism would prevent predatory "arbitrage" of
>> electricity, and provide the incentive to install solar panels on every
>> solar-accessible flat surface, even on bus shelters and other street
>> kiosks.
>>
>> The point-of-production microprocessors would be isolated from the
>> internet to prevent cyber-attacks against the grid: the best kind of "smart
>> grid" is one that self-regulates locally without being vulnerable
>> globally.
>>
>> I should also mention: Yes, electric automobiles can provide household
>> power storage in the absence of having a grid, but a) not everyone owns or
>> even wants an automobile, b) if you've drained your car battery pack
>> overnight to power your house, it's not available the next morning to get
>> you to work, and c) even if everyone could afford a new electric car, there
>> are good reasons to reduce car ownership and usage in favor of bicycles,
>> scooters, motorcycles, buses, and trains.
>>
>> Beyond that, we should not be destroying our civic infrastructure in
>> favor of requiring everyone to have their own i-Things or do without.
>> Public phones, public bathrooms (do you really want to carry an i-Pee
>> around?), public drinking fountains, public benches for sitting, public
>> transport, etc.: are all civic goods that make the public sphere more
>> user-friendly and accessible.  A public power grid is another example, as
>> with public water supply, public sewage treatment, and refuse disposal:
>> life without those things would be worse than miserable.
>>
>> Don't destroy it: reclaim it, revision it, and rebuild it.
>>
>> -G.
>>
>>
>> =====
>>
>>
>>
>> On 13-03-26-Tue 3:41 PM, Anthony Di Franco wrote:
>>
>>  Production of alternative energy can be and for most reasons probably
>> should be much less centralized, equivalently, smaller-scale, than
>> production of energy mostly is now. (Off-grid, as you mention, but very
>> literally.)
>> Large-scale up front + large, complex distribution networks is revealed
>> as an obsolete architecture; large scale distribution networks become
>> relatively less important, so even if the answer to your question is no,
>> which it probably isn't given crowdfunding and other disintermediated
>> finance gaining momentum, it's moot, or at least of much less relative
>> importance.
>> Put another way, when the most important goal is maximum efficiency
>> rather than maximum centralization, large upfront capital investment +
>> large, complex distribution network is stupid; proper accounting<https://homebrewindustrialrevolution.wordpress.com/>of all costs and benefits in a global rather than piecewise local sense
>> reveals this now for agriculture, manufacturing, energy, ...
>> Even now, buffering between supply and demand is a constraint on grid
>> architecture leading to great economic demand within the current paradigm
>> for distributed storage / production of energy according to someone who
>> came through sudo room whose name escapes me.
>> This loosely-drafted email brought to you by the slogan<http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2010/11/eaas-non-rival-goods-vs-rival-goods.html>,
>> "localize production, virtualize everything else"<http://www.miiu.org/wiki/Resilient_Things_by_Top-Level_Category> and
>> the acronym STEMI <http://www.accelerationwatch.com/mest.html>
>> compression<http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2008/11/stemi.html>
>> .
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 3:17 PM, Romy Ilano <romy at snowyla.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Is it possible to create alternative energy distribution networks
>>> (biofuels/solar/ wind etc) that replace mainstream petrol and natural gas
>>> based energy without a large financial sector?
>>>
>>>  the vc system that funds these alternative energy start-ups piggy
>>> backs off the investment banks, etc. and big private equity and
>>> institutional investment funds. vcs are like a fly on the @ss of a
>>> financial hippo.
>>>
>>>  I haven't heard people discuss off-grid that much in the tech talks
>>> I've been to( which are excellent). Is there a conversation here that would
>>> show how off grid is a viable alternative, even if it's not a big money
>>> solution?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 1:56 PM, <hol at gaskill.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> this talk about imports and exports always reminds me of energy flow
>>>>
>>>> compare 2011
>>>>
>>>> https://www.llnl.gov/news/newsreleases/2012/Oct/images/25306_LLNLUSEnergy2011650.jpg
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> with 2002
>>>> http://www.hubbertpeak.com/us/images/us_energyflow2002.jpg
>>>>
>>>> fascinating
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> sudo-discuss mailing list
>>> sudo-discuss at lists.sudoroom.org
>>> http://lists.sudoroom.org/listinfo/sudo-discuss
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> sudo-discuss mailing listsudo-discuss at lists.sudoroom.orghttp://lists.sudoroom.org/listinfo/sudo-discuss
>>
>>
>>
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://sudoroom.org/pipermail/sudo-discuss/attachments/20130326/206f417a/attachment.html>