Understanding and Connecting Smart Meters, Smart Grids, and Smart Markets.
- Lynne Kiesling
September 5th, 2009
Via an interview on NPR’s Living On Earth radio program, mention of an independent project that this blog’s authors are working on:
“…CURWOOD: So, how feasible is it to apply the Bushmen’s survival skills to developed countries?
WORKMAN: Well we have technology that they don’t. And our greatest technology in the last few years developed is the web, of course. What you have with Ebay, what you have with Amazon is this ability to trade with strangers and build trust.
And that’s the kind of thing I think we can adopt and which I’m trying to pioneer where you and somebody across the city from you – you’re all in the same water supply – you use, you know, fifty gallons, he uses 500 gallons. And if everybody gets the same amount of water, you can sell what you don’t use or you can save it to that stranger. It’s like an Ebay for the environment.
CURWOOD: One aspect of the case of the Bushmen that came up was a question of whether water is a basic human right.
WORKMAN: Yeah.
CURWOOD: Now, it seems to me that it’s impossible to live without water. So, what is the argument to say that water is not a human right?
WORKMAN: I’m siding with you exactly on that, but the counter point is like “wait – if water is a human right, then if some government fails to provide it through incompetence, do they get hauled up in front of the Hag?
A baobab tree in the Kalahari Desert. (Photo: James Workman)
Are they human rights violators whether it’s intentional or unintentional? And if it’s a human right, does that mean I get unlimited water wherever I live, so I can move to the Mohave Desert and says “I’ve got a human right to water! You must bring that water to me.”
My answer is that it is a human right, but it need not be called that. You can quantify a certain amount for every single person, rich or poor, and if they use that amount, then it’s free. If they use less than that amount, which they own, then they can sell or save credits that they’ve earned. Water is an economic good and it’s a human right. And it’s both together and we can use it as such…”
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Based on decades of experience and interest in conservation, Monty Simus believes that a truly “smart” grid must be a “transactive” grid, unshackled from its current status as a so-called “natural monopoly.”
In short, an unlocked grid must adopt and harness the power of markets to incentivize individual users, linked to each other on a large scale, who change consumptive behavior in creative ways that drive efficiency and bring equity to use of the planet's finite and increasingly scarce resources.