Essay on Energy and Energy Policy.
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Essay on Energy and Energy Policy.
1- Current Problems
2- Current Efforts and Proposed Solutions
3- Comprehensive Approach
4- Who can help?
1- Current Problems:
What are the current problems in Energy today?
- Energy consumption is increasing at a higher rate than production
- Oil Reserves are limited and get more expensive to find and extract
- Most Energy generation or consumption is harmful to the environment
- Energy inefficiencies wastes a huge percentage of materials extracted.
2- Current Efforts and Proposed Solutions:
A- Energy production:
- Pressure producing countries to increase production, control sources of oil. This approach is costly, militarily and it's debatable whether it pays off both in financial cost and cost in human life not to mention its effect on History going forward. It also can not be sustained for very long anyway. This tends to be a republican approach. Oil companies love this one. But its very transactional and momentary.
- Nuclear Energy. Due to historic catastrophic accidents Nuclear Energy adoption has slowed dramatically. And the relationship to Weapons has created international tensions.
- Green sources: solar, wind, water; everybody seems to like these solutions however the cost of green energy is much higher. There is a current debate about whether that is due to interference from oil companies or whether it's just a physical limitation.
- New technologies: Fusion, Hydrogen. I am not an energy scientist and don't really know the status of these technologies. If anybody knows, please add some info in the comments section.
B- Energy consumption:
- Pressure consumers to cut down on consumption. This approach has not worked historically. The number of people that buy into this principle has not been big enough to put a dent in the consumption increase rate. The democrats and environmentalists tend to favor this approach. Oil companies hate it.
- More Efficient Energy consumption: Hybrid cars, new light bulbs… This effort seems to be helping especially since you get the same result just with a little less gas or oil.
3- A Comprehensive Approach:
A few years ago a revolution in telecommunications and information sharing was created with the creation of the Internet and the Web. The differences in these fields from before the Internet to after the Internet could help us devise an approach for Energy.
A- Before the Internet:
Telecommunications was centralized and controlled by a government or a monopoly. Huge central offices acted as the aggregator of all communications. The connectivity was "star" shaped and had single points of failures
Before the internet Information sharing was done mostly through a one way broadcast systems: TV station, Newspapers, Books.
Information storage was centralized: Big Libraries, Archives, Blockbuster...
Information generation was controlled by a small number of people: Magazine Editors, TV Executives, Famous Authors, Movie Producers, and Governments
The connectivity was "star" shaped and had single points of failures: central office failing, major cable, broadcast tower, printing press…
B- After the Internet
Information storage, generation, and distribution became much more elemental and at the reach of everybody. The number of information generators exploded with millions of web sites, blogs, forums…
Connectivity became much more robust with rerouting, interconnected networks...
The cost of generating and transmitting information dropped dramatically.
The amount of information shared increased exponentially.
The possibility of censorship decreased.
Competition Increased.
Government regulation decreased.
And the Internet is not controlled by big players only.
C- How was the Internet created technically?
The internet is a set of protocols created by groups like IETF and W3C. They created protocols that let devices and networks, operated by different people, communicate with each other.
Once those standard protocols were created, People created products that use them, small networks started forming. They then connected to each other and formed today's Internet
The creation of the Internet did not require major government investments. It was enabled by the creation of the open standard protocols.
D- How does is apply to Energy?
Energy today has centralized extraction (mostly governments and huge cartels)
Generation, distribution, storage is centralized and controlled by a small number of people.
Distribution and transition is "star" shaped, proprietary, regulated, and has single points of failure. Long transmission distances create huge inefficiencies
What if just like I can generate a web site that my cousin in Brazil can read, I can generate some energy that my neighbor down the street can use? What if I can store some energy that my neighbor's car can run on tomorrow? What if my lights at home consumed some energy generated by my neighbor's solar array, some energy from my other neighbors exercise bike and some energy stored in batteries at the convenience store down the street. What if there was no such thing as a blackout any more.
Energy can be generated, collected, stored, and distributed everywhere around us, by all of us. If you add up all the energy generated by people exercising, it would make a difference in the total energy consumption. If you would decrease the long hall inefficiencies of power lines, it would make a difference. If I can charge my neighbor for energy created by my solar array, it may give me more incentive to get one. If a small business can install a small power station in a neighborhood and compete with the big power company with the same ease as creating a web site, competition will increase and transmission efficiency would help their business case.
New Technology does not have to concentrate on creating energy on a massive scale any more. We can explore technologies that just create a little energy.
I think that an effort to standardize on the following items would help reduce the Energy Problems we have today:
- Small Multidirectional Distribution Meshes (nets)
- Micro billing for consumption and generation
- Integration of small generation and storage devices to these Meshes
- Connection back into the backbone distribution grid with proper accounting
Incentive would be created for people to collect, store and distribute energy from processes they run everyday and from devices in their homes and businesses. This will in turn, create incentive for manufacturers to create devices that do the same. A health club can make an extra $5000 dollars a month as a small power station; a farmer can incinerate his mulch and make $1000.
History teaches us, that if we create enablers. Human ingenuity will exceed all our expectations.
Is this a far fetched idea or can it work? I am sure that the people who started the effort of standardizing the Internet protocols did not imagine the success that their work would create. Will it work for energy? Is it worth a try?
4- Who can help?
I was involved (although not in the early stages) at IETF and W3C. I do understand how standardization works. I have contributions to existing standards. I have been thinking about this idea for Energy standards for a long time now and do believe that it can decrease cost, increase efficiency and create a new industry. If anybody is interested in helping, please let know. We can create an effort to start this work.
Any comments and suggestions are welcome and appreciated.
1- Current Problems
2- Current Efforts and Proposed Solutions
3- Comprehensive Approach
4- Who can help?
1- Current Problems:
What are the current problems in Energy today?
- Energy consumption is increasing at a higher rate than production
- Oil Reserves are limited and get more expensive to find and extract
- Most Energy generation or consumption is harmful to the environment
- Energy inefficiencies wastes a huge percentage of materials extracted.
2- Current Efforts and Proposed Solutions:
A- Energy production:
- Pressure producing countries to increase production, control sources of oil. This approach is costly, militarily and it's debatable whether it pays off both in financial cost and cost in human life not to mention its effect on History going forward. It also can not be sustained for very long anyway. This tends to be a republican approach. Oil companies love this one. But its very transactional and momentary.
- Nuclear Energy. Due to historic catastrophic accidents Nuclear Energy adoption has slowed dramatically. And the relationship to Weapons has created international tensions.
- Green sources: solar, wind, water; everybody seems to like these solutions however the cost of green energy is much higher. There is a current debate about whether that is due to interference from oil companies or whether it's just a physical limitation.
- New technologies: Fusion, Hydrogen. I am not an energy scientist and don't really know the status of these technologies. If anybody knows, please add some info in the comments section.
B- Energy consumption:
- Pressure consumers to cut down on consumption. This approach has not worked historically. The number of people that buy into this principle has not been big enough to put a dent in the consumption increase rate. The democrats and environmentalists tend to favor this approach. Oil companies hate it.
- More Efficient Energy consumption: Hybrid cars, new light bulbs… This effort seems to be helping especially since you get the same result just with a little less gas or oil.
3- A Comprehensive Approach:
A few years ago a revolution in telecommunications and information sharing was created with the creation of the Internet and the Web. The differences in these fields from before the Internet to after the Internet could help us devise an approach for Energy.
A- Before the Internet:
Telecommunications was centralized and controlled by a government or a monopoly. Huge central offices acted as the aggregator of all communications. The connectivity was "star" shaped and had single points of failures
Before the internet Information sharing was done mostly through a one way broadcast systems: TV station, Newspapers, Books.
Information storage was centralized: Big Libraries, Archives, Blockbuster...
Information generation was controlled by a small number of people: Magazine Editors, TV Executives, Famous Authors, Movie Producers, and Governments
The connectivity was "star" shaped and had single points of failures: central office failing, major cable, broadcast tower, printing press…
B- After the Internet
Information storage, generation, and distribution became much more elemental and at the reach of everybody. The number of information generators exploded with millions of web sites, blogs, forums…
Connectivity became much more robust with rerouting, interconnected networks...
The cost of generating and transmitting information dropped dramatically.
The amount of information shared increased exponentially.
The possibility of censorship decreased.
Competition Increased.
Government regulation decreased.
And the Internet is not controlled by big players only.
C- How was the Internet created technically?
The internet is a set of protocols created by groups like IETF and W3C. They created protocols that let devices and networks, operated by different people, communicate with each other.
Once those standard protocols were created, People created products that use them, small networks started forming. They then connected to each other and formed today's Internet
The creation of the Internet did not require major government investments. It was enabled by the creation of the open standard protocols.
D- How does is apply to Energy?
Energy today has centralized extraction (mostly governments and huge cartels)
Generation, distribution, storage is centralized and controlled by a small number of people.
Distribution and transition is "star" shaped, proprietary, regulated, and has single points of failure. Long transmission distances create huge inefficiencies
What if just like I can generate a web site that my cousin in Brazil can read, I can generate some energy that my neighbor down the street can use? What if I can store some energy that my neighbor's car can run on tomorrow? What if my lights at home consumed some energy generated by my neighbor's solar array, some energy from my other neighbors exercise bike and some energy stored in batteries at the convenience store down the street. What if there was no such thing as a blackout any more.
Energy can be generated, collected, stored, and distributed everywhere around us, by all of us. If you add up all the energy generated by people exercising, it would make a difference in the total energy consumption. If you would decrease the long hall inefficiencies of power lines, it would make a difference. If I can charge my neighbor for energy created by my solar array, it may give me more incentive to get one. If a small business can install a small power station in a neighborhood and compete with the big power company with the same ease as creating a web site, competition will increase and transmission efficiency would help their business case.
New Technology does not have to concentrate on creating energy on a massive scale any more. We can explore technologies that just create a little energy.
I think that an effort to standardize on the following items would help reduce the Energy Problems we have today:
- Small Multidirectional Distribution Meshes (nets)
- Micro billing for consumption and generation
- Integration of small generation and storage devices to these Meshes
- Connection back into the backbone distribution grid with proper accounting
Incentive would be created for people to collect, store and distribute energy from processes they run everyday and from devices in their homes and businesses. This will in turn, create incentive for manufacturers to create devices that do the same. A health club can make an extra $5000 dollars a month as a small power station; a farmer can incinerate his mulch and make $1000.
History teaches us, that if we create enablers. Human ingenuity will exceed all our expectations.
Is this a far fetched idea or can it work? I am sure that the people who started the effort of standardizing the Internet protocols did not imagine the success that their work would create. Will it work for energy? Is it worth a try?
4- Who can help?
I was involved (although not in the early stages) at IETF and W3C. I do understand how standardization works. I have contributions to existing standards. I have been thinking about this idea for Energy standards for a long time now and do believe that it can decrease cost, increase efficiency and create a new industry. If anybody is interested in helping, please let know. We can create an effort to start this work.
Any comments and suggestions are welcome and appreciated.
