White House To Announce IT-Powered Smart Grid

FizzaNawaz writes "On Monday, the Obama administration is preparing announce the next steps that the US will take to build its 21st century electric grid, and IT is expected to play a big part in the plans. The White House is hosting a 90-minute media event called 'Building the 21st Century Electric Grid' and is releasing a new report on what it will take for lawmakers and the private sector to come together to solve this aspect of the energy challenge."

Maybe you should stick to what you know

[artor3]

Lots of generated power goes to waste. Our current grid is effectively "dumping massive amounts of power into a hole." The smart grid helps to reduce that waste.

Re:Solar panels on White House roof

[artor3]

It was Carter who put them up, and Reagan who took them down.

What this is really about

[Attila Dimedici]

Based on everything I have read about a "smart grid", this is about making sure that everyone has an electric meter that lets the power company (and through them the government) track exactly when and how much electricity they use. "Dear Mr. Doe, we see that you have set your air conditioner to 72 degrees. Don't you think it would be more responsible to set it at 74 degrees."

Re:Sigh

[artor3]

The Ryan plan eliminates Medicare as we know it. Yes, some older people will be grandfathered in. And yes, it replaces it with a new system with the same name. But those don't change the fact that the system we know as Medicare would end under his proposal.

Furthermore, the official estimates are that his plan would only cover a small portion of health care costs, which means most seniors would be simply unable to afford care, which means they bankrupt their children and die miserable with guilt (or hide their illnesses and die in pain). And the figures Ryan uses to create his estimates are laughably optimistic, calling for the US to enter a sustained period of growth the likes of which the world hasn't seen since the Industrial Revolution.

Re:Sigh

[kenh]

Andrew Jackson is the only President to pay off the national debt. Presindent Clinton, with the "help" of the Republicans in Congress was able to restrain spending and get government spending in-line with revenues, leading to a token annual surplus his last year in office, with PROJECTED surpluses if nothing changed from the year 2000 to 2010... Unfortunately, things changed since Clinton left office.

Clinton reduced the annual deficit, yet did not reduce the national debt while he was in office He took office with $4.6T in debt and left office leaving about $5.6T in debt. [source] [wikipedia.org]

Debt is what we accumulate, year after year. Deficit is the new debt we rack-up each year, that gets added to the debt. Debt Deficit

Re:Solar panels on White House roof

[GameboyRMH]

Not entirely true. Dubya put solar panels on the White House's garden shed:

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/10/hey-george-w-bush-put-solar-panels-on-the-white-house-too/64151/ [theatlantic.com]

Re:Sigh

[Anonymous Coward]

The cause of the crisis was the rich white bankers committing fraud when bundling the risky mortgages and claiming they were lower risk than they actually were. Foreclosures have been a regular occurrence since the beginning of lending. But the rich white lying bankers cried "look at all the blacks not paying" when the rate was still well below historical norms. The rich white bankers blamed the crisis they caused on Clinton and blacks.

None of the problems were from foreclosure rates being high causing instability. It was from the packaged and resold securities being fraudulently marketed as lower risk (and thus higher value) than they really were. The foreclosure rate never really got that bad, even with all the Faux News coverage showing them to help push the blame on minorities and away from the rich white people.