Smart Grid: Green Dream or Just Another Big Brother Control Grid?

[Samurai Appliance Repair Man]

 

What is Smart Grid?

Smart Grid is a planned enhancement to the existing power distribution grid that will, in theory, have the capability of meeting growing electricity demand by more efficient distribution without having to build new power plants. One of the ways this lofty goal will be accomplished is by using two-way technology. Where the current power grid is one-way– power flows out from the power plant, through the grid, to the end user with no feedback or communication with the power plant– the Smart Grid will be two-way, meaning it will send back information to the power plant (and government regulators) on how the electricity is being used, in what types of machines, by whom, and for how long. It’s this “two-way” bidness that makes Big Brother smile and should make you cringe.

Who Likes It?

• Environmental Groups
• Government
• Utilities

Environmental Groups

The “Warmistas” or Green Nazis, the tools of the global elite, are all ga-ga over Smart Grid because they’ve been conned into thinking that it’s good for the earth, man. These are the same gullible, useful idiots of the global elite who’ve bought into the whole global warming scam, which was proven to be a scam (and a conspiracy) when a decade’s worth of emails and falsified data were leaked by investigators on the inside. But, hey, don’t take my word for it– read the Climategate Files for yourself.

Government

Government, especially the Ameedican gubmint, has a long history of using technology to spy on its citizens, especially in recent years (e.g., Patriot Act, Project ECHELON, Total Information Awareness initiative, etc.).

Government likes Smart Grid because it gives them what governments always want: control; specifically, more control over the sheeple. Smart Grid gives them this through its two-way technology, which allows them to monitor not only how much electricity you’re using but how you’re using it and for what types of appliances.

For example, they can look at your total power usage and, say, 60% of it is accounted for from Smart Grid-enabled appliances. That leaves 40% of your usage unaccounted for. So, gubmint, which embodies the unfortunate combination of Rambo and the Keystone Cops, automatically assumes you must be doing something illegal, like running an indoor pot garden using high-energy grow lights. Next thing you know, DEA is raiding your house at 2am, shoots your dog and ransacks your home only to find that all you have is a tanning bed.

This power monitoring is effectively a form of surveillance over you for gubmint bureaucrats. You think gubmint will use this information wisely? Well, you must absolutely love the way they handled New Orleans in the wake of hurricane Katrina, the bankster bailouts, the Patriot Act (which was only supposed to be used for terrorists) being used against pot smokers, standing in long lines at airports while waiting to be fondled and groped by TSA thugs, and having 3-D, full-detailed pornographic electronic images taken of your wife and daughter.

When will the sheeple finally wake up and realize this is just another scam, another power-grab by a perverted gang of criminals calling themselves “your government” to exert more control over your life and keep you enslaved like a good little serf? To the criminal cabal in Washington, Smart Grid is yet another way to exert neo-feudalism, keep you on the plantation, invade your privacy and ration your electricity use. Think I’m exaggerating? It’s stated right inside DOE’s happy talk Smart Grid propaganda brochure on pages 17 and 18. You can download the entire puff-piece here.

Utility Companies

If you haven’t figured it out already, we blew right past socialism and have arrived at full-on fascism in Amerika today. A quick refresher for the Illiterati: “Socialism” is where all the losses and the gains are socialized; everyone, including big corporations, are all floundering in the same sewer together. “Fascism,” on the other hand, is where the losses are socialized but the profits or gains are privatized. The most recent and brazen example of this was the banker bailout– they gambled with huge amounts of money and, as long as it worked out in their favor, they kept all the profits; but when they lost big bucks, we the tax-paying suckers, had to bail them out. So, in a fascist system, when the special corporate interests make money, they keep it and the sheeple get nothing; when they “lose” money, the sheeple pay for it and they don’t really lose at all. It’s a game of “heads they win; tails we lose.”

The utility companies claim that Smart Grid will let them have more “granular” control over power production and have more awareness of power failures. Currently, when power goes out in an area, the only way the power company knows about it is when someone phones it in. The two-way nature of Smart Grid enables them to know automatically when part of their grid goes down. But this comes at a huge price for us. And, besides, is it really such a burden to call in a power outage? Our power goes out regularly and we just call in the outage to the power company’s toll-free automated power outage line and they dispatch a crew to fix it. What’s the big deal?

The real reason power companies like Smart Grid is because it will enable them to create artificial scarcity scenarios and thus increase rates. It doesn’t take much grey matter to foresee a situation where the power company is low on power during a peak demand period and they have a choice: supply power to Joe Sixpack at (relatively) low rates or to a commercial or industrial customer who pays sometimes two or three times the residential rate. Hmm, decisions, decisions.

Smart Grid represents yet another merger of government and corporate interests. They’re in bed together and each stands to benefit in specific ways from Smart Grid which boils down to this: more control and surveillance over we the sheeple, higher electricity costs, and less electricity available when we want it, even if we’re willing to pay for it.

Conclusion

Smart Grid is touted as a way to extend the capabilities of an aging and ailing power grid system, to deliver power to meet ever-growing demand without building additional power generating plants. If that right there doesn’t scream “rationing” to you, then you’re either stone deaf or dumb as a rock. So what’s the answer to meeting increased power demand? Simple: build more frikkin’ power plants! “Oh, no!” come the shrill cries from the green weenies, “that’ll increase pollution and *gasp* global warming!” Stop falling for that bovine excrement. Now that global warming has been proven to be a Big Lie of Hitlerian proportions, we can take that card off the table. As for other types of pollution, such as sulfur and nitrogen oxides which cause smog and acid rain deposition, these are real concerns. But they can effectively be dealt with using modern air pollution control technologies. These are engineering problems, and solutions for them have been around since before I was in graduate school in Environmental Systems Engineering at Clemson University in the mid-1980’s. Engineers solve these kinds of problems every single day.

The biggest impediment to building new power plants is the government red-tape and strangling regulations. No one in their right mind is going to invest capital into building a power plant, whether coal-fired using clean coal technology or nuclear, if they see no possibility of earning a return on that capital. Sorry, folks, that’s the way the real world works, no matter what Karl Marx (or his surrogates in American universities) tells you.

And now, brothers and sisters, let us conclude this screed with a haiku. Fire up a spliff and chant along with me now…

 

Smart Grid’s a-comin’

DOE says it’s great for

controlling us serfs.

[RegUS_PatOff]

I'm not sure what it's all about...

but, a few years ago, we opted to have a "power controlling" device installed on our Central Air Conditioner.

The Power Company has control to turn it OFF  "up to 4 hours, once per day",  (other user options available)

We get $30 credit for each of the (4) Wisconsin summer months, whether or not they control it.

They've only turned it OFF a few times, in the years we've had it.

 

Other users with Electric Water Heaters (we use GAS), have the option to have their Water Heater turned OFF for a few hours during certain times of the day or night.

(user selectable options)

 

[Samurai Appliance Repair Man]

That's Smart Grid's little brudder-- the precursor technology used to develop the coming Control Grid. My mother-in-law has the same arrangement. Couple key differences:

- It's voluntary; Smart Grid won't be voluntary and we won't be able to opt out.

- You're getting a financial incentive-- ain't gonna be no such incentive with Smart Grid. The financial incentive is all the power companies'. For us, it'll just be more control and surveillance over our lives. Once again, they get the gain, we get the pain.

[superiorapplianceparts]

initially, i was intrigued by the idea of being able to monitor my own energy consumption on-demand, since i have a head for useless data.

then i started reading a bit more about how it's going to be implemented, and as you oh-so-eloquently state, there are many troublesome aspects.  the pros are beginning to be dwarfed by the potential or real cons.

oh well.  sounds more like a dumb grid.

[Larryair]

As we witness the continuing automation

of elements in our power systems, it may

prove useful to consider that these emerging

technologies may be used for teh evil. Or not.

Isn't a big part of the "smart grid" the ability

to enable decentralization and individual generation

for everyone? Not really my specialty so I haven't

done enough investigating on this, but this was my

initial perceptions on its purposes and goals.

That the Most Fermented references Alex Jones for

political and governmental analysis and histrionics

does not necessarily reflect poorly on his appliance

wisdom. At least not that I have noticed. But it doesn't

lend it much credence in my humble opinion either.

As most major and minor appliances are themselves

technical innovations and applications of previous

scientific research, I see no reason to reject the same

sort of science, with provisions, outright as it applies

to emerging and changing global climate conditions.

A part of me wishes that we could all go back to the days

of simple relay and switch controls, but that doesn't appear

to be on anyones agenda. If the tech that emerges

gives me the ability to know and manage my own energy

consumption and creation by my appliances communicating

to me and or the government, I ask why not? Does anyone

believe for a moment that individual electrical usage is

not monitored presently? And shared with various public

and private entities for many rational and necessary

reasons? How is your own electric usage accounted for?

To the best of my knowledge, no one is "required" to be

connected to anything anywhere. One can live as all did

in past centuries, if you so choose. But that means no

appliance repair websites, as they are hardly needed in

such situations.

Through much trial and error, and the usual human loss,

we have collectively realized that if you want to be a

part of the electrical "system" you must conform to some

generally agreed upon standards and practices. If you

don't, it can affect more than just your own personal tea ceremony.

This is perhaps a small wisdom that may be considered

for other situations both local and global as it may so apply. Or not.

If you take out the neighborhoods transformer because you

believe grounding is an evil globalist plot, are you a

rugged original intent individual patriot, or just another

eccentric minor nuisance in dire need of personal

electro-magnetic shielding headwear?

I am not an expert on eastern traditions, but it seems

to me that Samurai should not be driven so much by fear.

Appliance repair and national energy policies both should

be approached with the respect and considerations each one demands.

While I may and do agree with some of your observations

concerning our economic and political systems malfunctions,

I think that our respective reasoning on their causes

and solutions might differ greatly.

Of course, I do not seek such analysis from appliances,

their manufacturers, their suppliers, and or repairmen.

Nor do I ask Alex Jones for appliance parts diagrams,

because in my experiences they have little co-relation.

[Econo Appliance]

I think this smart grid could be a great idea if they actually made it smart. Imagine if your refrigerator was smart enough to detect times of peak power usage, and would turn off the compressor for a few minutes. It would solve power outages, peak rates, and short times of non-operation in your fridge are not going to make a noticeable difference.

Since they want to do 2-way power technology, they should offer a program where people with solar panels can sell their power BACK to the city. Now THAT would be great!!!!!

[RegUS_PatOff]

Contrary to what you may have read or heard, (on those websites trying to sell you their systems),

there's usually not enough solar power to sell back to the power companies ...

Solar power itself isn't, at this time, cost effective...

You could put that same initial cost/instalation amount of money (and yearly maintenance costs that the sellers don't mention)

into the bank and use the interest to pay your electric bill to the power company.

Also, like many other businesses, if the consumer usage goes down, they'll have to raise their rates....

They'll get the same amount of revenue no matter how much they sell.

[Econo Appliance]

[user=3641]RegUS_PatOff[/user] wrote:

Contrary to what you may have read or heard, (on those websites trying to sell you their systems),

there's usually not enough solar power to sell back to the power companies ...

Solar power itself isn't, at this time, cost effective...

Yep - all the technology is there,  only nowhere near being cost-effective,  so nobody is using it.  What if all the $$ we've spent on war would have gone towards clean energy technology??   Makes me sick to think about it.

[john63]

Gibberish...DeCiphered:

 

As we witness the continuing automation

of elements in our power systems, it may

prove useful to consider that these emerging

technologies may be used for teh evil. Or not.

AS THE GOVERNMENT CONTEMPLATES THE APPLICATION OF *SMART GRID*, SOME ARE FEARING THE WORST,BUT I DON'T THINK SO.

Isn't a big part of the "smart grid" the ability

to enable decentralization and individual generation

for everyone?

RELAX...THIS BIG GOV'T *SMART GRID* PLAN WILL EVENTUALLY BE BROKEN DOWN TO MANY SMALLER COMPONENTS. HAVE NO FEAR. SLEEP WELL AT NIGHT.

 

Not really my specialty so I haven't

done enough investigating on this, but this was my

initial perceptions on its purposes and goals.

I DON'T REALLY UNDERSTAND WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT. LIKE SOME POLITICIANS OF RECENT---LET'S MOVE FORWARD WITH THIS MASSIVE IDEA AND FIGURE IT ALL OUT AT A MUCH,MUCH LATER POINT IN TIME.

That the Most Fermented references Alex Jones for

political and governmental analysis and histrionics

does not necessarily reflect poorly on his appliance

wisdom. At least not that I have noticed.

ALLOW ME TO BE ELITIST--AND POINT OUT THAT *ANY* DISAGREEMENT OR CONCERN ABOUT THE *SMART GRID* CONCEPT FROM MERE MORTALS IS FOOLISH AND INTOLERABLE.

But it doesn't

lend it much credence in my humble opinion either.

I DON'T VALUE THE OPINIONS OF SIMPLE PEOPLE.

As most major and minor appliances are themselves

technical innovations and applications of previous

scientific research, I see no reason to reject the same

sort of science, with provisions, outright as it applies

to emerging and changing global climate conditions.

THE SCIENTIFIC ADVANCES OF THE PAST 100 YEARS HAVE GIVEN RISE TO MANY AWESOME INVENTIONS. JUST BECAUSE THE "SCIENTIFIC DATA" ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE IS *FLAWED* AND *CORRUPTED*---I ASK ALL OF YOU--THE MEEK--TO SET ASIDE THESE FOOLISH ACCUSATIONS ABOUT THE LEGITIMACY OF GLOBAL WARMING AND INSTEAD--BLINDLY TRUST US AND ACCEPT EVEN THAT WHICH IS UNACCEPTABLE.   

A part of me wishes that we could all go back to the days

of simple relay and switch controls, but that doesn't appear

to be on anyones agenda.

? 

If the tech that emerges

gives me the ability to know and manage my own energy

consumption and creation by my appliances communicating

to me and or the government, I ask why not?

EVEN THOUGH MANY NON-HARVARD EDUCATED PEOPLES OF THE LAND DON'T MIND THE IDEA OF HAVING KNOWLEDGE OF THEIR OWN ENERGY CONSUMPTION IN THEIR OWN HOME--LET'S NOT BE OBSTRUCTIONISTS. LET THE FEDERALES RUN THIS AT THE FEDERALE-LEVEL. SURELY YOU AGREE--THE FED KNOWS BEST,RIGHT?

 Does anyone

believe for a moment that individual electrical usage is

not monitored presently? And shared with various public

and private entities for many rational and necessary

reasons? How is your own electric usage accounted for?

DON'T FRET! HAVE NO FEAR! THE *SMART GRID* WON'T BE ANY DIFFERENT THAN WHAT ALREADY EXISTS! (Though I confess--what do we *really* need a smart grid for then??)

To the best of my knowledge, no one is "required" to be

connected to anything anywhere. One can live as all did

in past centuries, if you so choose. But that means no

appliance repair websites, as they are hardly needed in

such situations.

HAHAHA---THE *SMART GRID* CAN BE AVOIDED BY YOU STUPID PEASANTS---IF YOU REALLY WANT THAT---I ADVISE THAT YOU GO "OFF-GRID" AND STAY OFF. HAHAHAHA.

Through much trial and error, and the usual human loss,

we have collectively realized that if you want to be a

part of the electrical "system" you must conform to some

generally agreed upon standards and practices.

KARL MARX IS GREAT! VIVA LA MARX!

 If you

don't, it can affect more than just your own personal tea ceremony.

NOW DON'T GO EXERCISING YOUR 1ST AMENDMENT RIGHT G*DAMMIT!

 

This is perhaps a small wisdom that may be considered

for other situations both local and global as it may so apply. Or not.

??

If you take out the neighborhoods transformer because you

believe grounding is an evil globalist plot, are you a

rugged original intent individual patriot, or just another

eccentric minor nuisance in dire need of personal

electro-magnetic shielding headwear?

DON'T BE UNREASONABLE MAN! ANYONE THAT DISAGREES WITH THE *SMART GRID* IS A THREAT AND AN ENEMY OF THE HARVARD ELITE...errr...I MEANT STATE!

I am not an expert on eastern traditions, but it seems

to me that Samurai should not be driven so much by fear.

Appliance repair and national energy policies both should

be approached with the respect and considerations each one demands.

DAMN YOU! YOU MERE-MORTAL APPLIANCE FOOL!!  SHUT YOUR OBSCENE HOLE AND LET THOSE OF US WHO KNOW BETTER ARRIVE AT A DECISION THAT'S BEST FOR ALL OF US! WE DO NOT REQUIRE YOUR PITIFUL INPUT,YOU FOOL! BLINDLY GO ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS WITH WHAT IT IS THAT YOU DO BEST---LOOKING OVER THERE---WHILE WE SCHEME (I mean dictate national energy policy) OVER HERE!

While I may and do agree with some of your observations

concerning our economic and political systems malfunctions,

I think that our respective reasoning on their causes

and solutions might differ greatly.

I AM NOW SPEAKING IN RUSSIAN--CAN YOU UNDERSTAND EVERY WORD THAT I AM SAYING? CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?! 

Of course, I do not seek such analysis from appliances,

their manufacturers, their suppliers, and or repairmen.

Nor do I ask Alex Jones for appliance parts diagrams,

because in my experiences they have little co-relation.

IN CLOSING--I DO NOT SEEK THE INPUT OF THE GOVERNED. THE ASSES OF THE MASSES. PITIFUL.