Wednesday, June 25, 2003

The future of power... So the utilities want to Redrawing the Electric Power Grid [New York Times: Technology]. by building more high capicity power lines.  Basically, the power is available, but it can't get to the people who need it.  One solution would be to generate more power locally, but that doesn't have the support of the utilities. Here's my view of the future.  The majority of power needed by a home will be generated by a home, by solar, fuel cell, any which way.  Any excess energy generated will be sent to nearby homes that don't generate enough, in a peer to peer arrangment.  There will be no need to worry about sending power great distances, as it can just be sent to a neighbor.  There will be no need to operate hundreds or thousands of high polluting power plants.  There will be some, needed here and there, but by large, they will be superflourus.  The power companies will still exist, only in a much reduced form.  For a small yearly fee they can maintain the power lines, and possibly handle billing for energy in the peer to peer arangment.  In the beginning, only the people who have to purchase power from others will end up paying, as any fee the power producers pay will be canceled out by the money they make for selling their excess power.  At some point the current energy grid will be unneccesary.  6:07:42 PM    Talk to me! []

Way to go Lessig!!! This is great news for the public domain.  As long as these Congresspeople stay the course, we could be in for some good news. very good news. I have just arrived in DC, where I was planning on meeting with staffers on the Hill tomorrow to drum up support for the Public Domain Enhancement Act. We've got CD's of all 15k+ of the signatures on our Reclaim the Public Domain petition to hand out. It was going to be a fun day (as fun as any DC day gets) in DC. But we've now learned that Congresswoman Lofgren (D-CA) and Congressman Doolittle (R-CA) have agreed to introduce the bill into Congress. We're having an event at 1pm tomorrow at the Capitol to announce this first step on a long road to Reclaiming the Public Domain. Count this as great news, and spread the word: there are two great souls on Capitol Hill. I'll see if I can find some more. [Lessig Blog] 5:14:53 PM    Talk to me! []

© Copyright 2003 Kurt Hines.