Via The Energy Collective, an interesting article on Economist Jeremy Rifkin’s plans to simultaneously solve the economic and energy crises via a pan-European strategy of small-scale energy generation and smart energy grids that make everyone a partner in energy. As the article notes:
“…in Mr Rifkin’s grand plan, every citizen of the EU would participate in order to revolutionise the way energy is generated, used, and monetised.
…The fourth pillar of the plan would make everyone a stakeholder in the scheme by overhauling the outdated power grid system.
“We’re going to use the same tecnology that created the internet; we take the power grid of the EU and turn it into an ‘intergrid’ that works just like the internet.
“Say you’re producing 30% of your energy need, it’s peak period in the middle of the day and you don’t need the electricity. If millions of people send just a little bit back to the grid, peer-to-peer just like we send information on the internet, that’s distributed power.”
But the distributed computing allowed by the revamped power grid could introduce a new economic paradigm – what Mr Rifkin calls “distributed capitalism”.
“The main grid [will be] completely distributed, software connected to sensors connected to every appliance in your home: thermostat, washing machine, toaster, everything.
“At any one time the system will know what every washing machine is doing in Europe. If you have peak demand, not enough supply, software can say to two million washing machines ‘forget the extra rinse’.
“If you bought the program – it’s all voluntary – you get a cheque at the end of the month or a credit from the electricity company…”
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