December 1, 2011
Smart Grid is the ‘energy Internet' of the future
http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/energy-and-environment/article2675023.ece
Commentary
R. Ashok Kumar,B.E., M.E(Poweer), Negentropist, Bombay Sarvodaya Mandal, 299, Tardeo Road, Nana Chowk, Mumbai-400007.
Many, many comments here are dangerous to all life. They must do a bit of rethinking. Why are we short of power, energy? Electricity is being overused(12% of total energy used, instead of some 5%). Putting all our eggs in one basket is typical of our penchant for greed. If we adhere to the strict concept of safety we would change our lifestyles so that we do not waste resources. We are wasting ourselves. And allowing the fascists to rule!Mahatma Gandhi epitomised happy living when he said we should use our enormous endowment of people's power. Only Griddy made a pertinent suggestion here when he called for substitution of machine power by manpower ergonomically and enjoyably used: Use grid tie inverters to feed the electricity we produce by stationary riding of bicycles and turn the energy meters backward. See the power flow in living energy via the sun located 150 million kms away safely! Production by the masses instead of mass production. This is Gita in use when they return all they take to Mother Earth: freedom!
Our agriculture is of course founded on sowing in rice fields and so on. See the dramatic cotton plucking effects at
http://isothermalengines.blogspot.com
One of the most gracefully powerful films dramatising the enjoyment of human power is De Santis: "Bitter Rice" starring Silvana Mangano. Embrace now a normal civilization based on living energy enjoyment to survive.
The internet uses today a vast amount of electricity and it must be our immediate duty to nullify this for the sake of our own survival. It uses globally an amount varying from 170 GW to 307 GW((Reference 2). The world nuclear electrcity capacity as of 2006 is 376824 MW. By intelligent energy substitution with human power we can supply all the electricity used by the internet.
It is pertinent here to examine the implictions of substitution of nuclear fission/fast breeders with clean electricity generated by living energy use. Consider water requirements of nuclear power plants. The present nuclear power plants of the world(376824 MW as of 2006)) take away 1.5 billion cubic meters of fresh clean drinking water per day depriving almost 2 billion people of daily drinking water and replace them with radioactive water returned to the source. But the 2 billion people have a peak power capacity together of 400000 MW- more than the present nuclear capacity! Recruiting millions more to the venture of substituting nuclear fission power with enjoyable human pedal power we can meet comfortably all of electricity needs this way, practicing energy conservation in the process(required to the extent of at most 5% of our total energy requirements).
See the board below:Note: In this board,?T stands for the temperature difference,degrees Farenheit, between input water and outfall water of a nuclear system; cmm is cubic meters per minute;cmd is cubic meters per day;Bn Pop is Billions Population. elec is electricity; gpm is gallons per minute. li is liters.W/cap is watts of power per person.NPP iss nuclear Power Plant.
Source for nuclear plant water requirement: Union of Concerned Scientists. Got Water?
http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/nuclear_power/20071204-ucs-brief-got-water.pdf
This is almost the nuclear capacity!
The advantages of ergonomically designed yogic human power cannot be overemphasised. Lets learn at least after Fukushima and change over to perfect knowledge based normal civilised way of life. For information we can reduce our electricity requirements for air conditioning by 75% or more by switiching to vapour absorption air conditioning.
See http://absorptionac.blogspot.com/
Reference1: Griddy:
The Internet and Electricity
Recognising the magnitude of power the internet requires people formed into an internet grid and with suitable schedules to take into account local times literally pedalled their powers through smart cards connected to the power plug. This way 350000 megawatts at 100 watts peak power electricity the internetted individuals delivered via bicycling to the grid. This isothermal power they produced at 1.2 volts shockless. They are so elegant that they were produced through non-clonal love and they returned their wastes to Mother Earth via composting toilets. They worked in small self sufficient communities but handled their farm water by wells operated by their power. They were so smart via internetted control rooms that they were able to do the work of hydros by delivering power to meet demand surges. They enjoyed their muscle power buffered by animal power of buffaloes and bulls whose manure they used for their ever fertile fields. They dare not export food.
Reference 2: Barath Raghavan and Justin Ma.2011.The Energy and Emergy of the Internet at
http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~jtma/papers/emergy-hotnets2011.pdf
Reference 3. The data on electricity capacity and production till 2006 from 1980 is at
http://www.eia.gov/iea/elec.html