How Obama Plans to Improve Energy Infrastructure

If you’ve read the last two installments in this series, Peak Oil and the Grid and Theories That Claim the Sky is Falling, you’ll have some idea of the urgency behind Obama getting the energy infrastructure of the country the investment it needs. Thankfully, Obama gets it. He understands that the grid cannot support alternative energy development in its current state, and that it needs a radical overhaul to turn it into a smart grid.

One of the biggest changes, and also the most controversial, is the need to unify the grid across state lines, in essence, nationalizing all, or part, of the grid. In an interview with Rachel Maddow, Obama said:

One of, I think, the most important infrastructure projects that we need is a whole new electricity grid. Because if we’re going to be serious about renewable energy, I want to be able to get wind power from North Dakota to population centers, like Chicago. And we’re going to have to have a smart grid if we want to use plug-in hybrids then we want to be able to have ordinary consumers sell back the electricity that’s generated from those car batteries, back into the grid. That can create 5 million new jobs, just in new energy. But, it’s huge projects that generally speaking, you’re not going to have private enterprise would want to take all those risks. And we’re going to have to be involved in that process.

So what is a smart grid? How would it differ from what we have now? According to the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL):

The Modern Grid will have seven key characteristics that benefit consumers, business, utilities and national security:

Self-Heals A self-healing modern grid detects and responds to routine problems and quickly recovers if they occur, minimizing downtime and financial loss.
Motivates and Includes the Consumer With a modern grid, commercial, industrial and residential energy consumers will have visibility into prices and the ability to choose a program and a price that best suits their needs.
Resists Attack Security is built in from the ground up in a modern grid.
Provides Power Quality for 21st Century Needs A modern grid provides electricity free of sags, spikes, disturbances and interruptions. It is suitable to the data centers, computers, electronics and robotic manufacturing that will power our future economy.
Accomodates All Generation and Storage Options A modern grid allows plug-and-play interconnection to practically any source of power, including renewable energy sources and storage.
Enables Markets A modern grid supports consistent operation from coast to coast while allowing innovation locally and regionally.
Optimizes Assets and Operates Efficiently A modern grid allows us to put more power through existing systems, build less new infrastructure and spend less to operate and maintain the grid.

Opponents object to a “national smart grid” on the grounds that many of the current plants and power lines are privately owned and fall explicitly under the jurisdiction of the states in which they reside. The mish-mash of regional connected power plants has no current incentive to update with new smart grid technologies since it does nothing to increase their upside. In oder to rapidly develop a smart grid, Obama’s administration will have to throw big money at the project (Gore advises $400 billion over 10 years), and exercise eminent domain to create the interstate energy backbone that the new grid would require. Even environmentalists object on the grounds that regional wildlife and landscape will be disrupted.

Can Obama overcome all of these obstacles? He can if enough people realize the absolute necessity for an overhaul of the current grid system. At this point in the game, with financial markets crumbling under short-sighted greed-happy mismanagement, long-term investment in the future must become a priority.

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December 18, 2008 | Filed Under Future Freak, Perfect World 

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