"Smart Grid" is a dumb idea

[Ungrounded Lightning Rod]

In quotes because it's not the waves that propagate.

Point your laser pointer at Polaris.  Swing it to point at Sirius over a period of ten seconds.  The point of intersection of the light with a hypothetical sphere at a distance of one lightyear moves far faster than the speed of light.  But the light itself moved at good old C.

Similarly (and neglecting non-unity refractive index) the line of intersection of the wavefront from the nuclear flash with a particular level of the atmosphere moves outward from the point below the bomb at far faster than C at first, dropping to C when the light's direction is tangent to the sphere.  (After that it "speeds up" again - and again notice the quotes.)

[scottsAI]

Ghurd,

Thank you for your kind words!

Had fun today. Learned a few things making it a great day.

To answer your question check out post #21 by DanG. Read all his links, their great.

Modern vehicles are well shielded for EMC, turns out to be good for EMP.

If not running during the EMP have a 90% change of working after, may need some repair. Zero if running during the EMP.

Starter motors should be fine, heavy conductors will survive if short wires. The electronics to control, nope. Simple switch with relay good change still work.

More importantly your dead. Where does the food come from? How to pay for it?

Think our government is prepared? look at New Orleans even today.

Have fun,

Scott.

[scottsAI]

Thanks DamonHD, took up my whole evening reading the links and following distractions! Long term storage of food was particularly interesting.

Scott.

[scottsAI]

Ungrounded Lightning Rod,

Very interesting stuff, have any links for further reading?

dnix71 thanks for starting this post. Learned a lot today.

Thanks,

Scott.

[bob g]

when power gets to about .25/kwatt/hr, and oil is about 70usd/barrel

microcogeneration starts to make real sense for the masses.

i think somewhere in a dark cigar smoke filled room, the guys that try to control

this mess have that figured out, once the public starts to see that they can produce

their own power the utility companies start to lose customers, they need less coal

so the coal producers lose money, the rails ship less so they lose money, they burn less natural gas, so the gas/oil companies sell less which upsets their markets, and perhaps worst of all in their mind is the gennie is forever out of the bottle.

once microgeneration really starts to be accepted as reality, there will be companies popping up everywhere to supply the equipment and the real new economy

and the next bubble will start to inflate.

its just a matter of time, in my opinion for the numbers to come together in the proper order for it to make sense and then it will happen quite rapidly.

this among other things is why the utility industry does not reinvest any more than is absolutely necessary to keep the lights on, that and of course the profit margin

for this day/quarter/year so the stock holder don't kick them off the board.

reinvesting reduced profits today/quarter/year, but might return profits later?

but the investing world doesn't care much about some profits next year or decade

and beyond, they want it now!

i don't see any rapid move to increased capacity, smart grid, rebuilding the grid

or much of anything else that is very rapid anytime soon if ever, unless the money

comes from some huge government program, but

the government is broke as a joke, and we the people have had about all we wanna give taken from us...

so there is the full circle, back to us, we don't wanna pay more taxes, so we look to see if there is more we can do for ourselves, and waaalaaa,,,microgeneration and the resulting very distributed and uncontrolled/untaxed generation that they have never wanted anyway.

i would say it is just about

"checkmate"

bob g

[scottsAI]

When gas hit $4/gal. I was encouraged microgeneration's turn had come.

All energies upped their prices.

Oil companies learned again people can cut back. Total dollars in their pocket dropped.

Did not last long enough to raise my electric high enough for solar to come to the rescue.

Maybe next time!

[brokengun]

That is what I assumed would happen... I wasn't aware of all this stimulus money going toward research for the smart grid. A lot of things like that need to change. Not just government money handouts but things reflecting their "real" costs.

Also, is it just me or are there no political parties anymore? There is just Fox news and people who hate "Republicans". No one's views are represented anymore.

[Ungrounded Lightning Rod]

Sorry.  That was from stuff I picked up over the years before the web.  Don't have the footnotes in my head from that far back, either.

Try searching for info on cancer incidence vs. age.  Sometimes it's already plotted on a log-lin graph (because it tends to come out cleaner that way).  Otherwise you can plot it yourself and see how well it fits a power law.

Were you around long enough for the radon scare?  That was one that they extrapolated from lung cancer incidence in uranium miners (who also smoked like chimbneys and inhaled radioactive dust particles - think about the inverse-square law and what that means near a small radioactive particle stuck in one spot in tissue).

[scottsAI]

Ungrounded Lightning Rod,

Yes, even worse were the Ridiculous conditions required to do the home testing.

Neighbors have noisy fan running 24/7 to air out their sump.

Radiation has been blamed for many things.

Years ago I asked why they use Radiation for cancer treatment if its so bad?

Thanks, well look into it, worked in nuclear power industry years ago.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Have fun,

Scott.

[electrak]

  Here in Maine, we have a company, Centrail Maine Power, they just distrbute power, the state made them sell all generation, they are activly trying to reinvest, upgrade the grid, but that means bigger more transmission lines, and noone wants them in their backyards, it might spoil the veiw, same goes for wind turbines.

  CMP is not afraid to upgrade, (or up the rates) they found out that if they don't it cost the company, and it's shareholders money. For if it is not kept up, it will go down when it is hard and expensive to fix it.

  If we do want Smart Grid, it should be installed as old systems get replaced, most parts of the grid get changed out on a set schedal, if the upgrades are done then, then the extra cost is rather small.

  As for privicy, on the consumer side, if it is an enectronic meter that lets them know how much each house is using at any time( then they don't need meter readers, more savings for them ), I can live with that, if they want to know what it is being used for, I don't want it, if they can sugest, or turn things off, fine as long as I have the final say in my house, say if they want to turn my water heater off, give me a way to turn it back on if I want it at that time.

  As for EMP, if that happens we have bigger fish to fry,  

[Ungrounded Lightning Rod]

In most types of cancer the cancerous cells are somewhat weaker than the surrounding normal cells.  This is partly because they spend a lot of time reproducing (which is costly), partly because some of their normal functions may be broken (or turned off during the reproductive cycle), and partly because they may be under attack by the immune system and/or the remains of some of their own "You're cancerous! Stop reproducing and/or die!" systems.

A lot of cancer treatments take advantage of this and consist of ALMOST killing off the normal cells of the cancerous type or in the cancer's location, in order to kill the weaker cancer cells.  That's why chemotherapy makes the patient really sick (cells poisoned almost to death, lining of the intestines not renewing at the full rate) and makes the hair (which, like parts of the intestines, is built of rapidly-reproducing cells) fall out.  It's also why melanoma is such a bitch if you don't catch it when it's just a spot:  The reactions that make melanin give the cell energy rather than costing it.  So melanoma cells are HARDIER than normal cells.

Radiation is one of those things which can be used to kill off cells:  The treatments try to kill off the cancerous cells while leaving enough of the good ones intact to keep the patient alive.  The main risk is that some of the other cells it damages might not suicide, be killed off by the immune system, or just do nothing bad, but instead turn cancerous.  Normally this would be a big deal.  But if you ALREADY have an inoperable cancer, a small chance of getting ANOTHER one while killing it off is a good bet.