Less Smarter

This stimulus money to be spent on Elk Grove to help build out its Intelligent Transportation System, as I just pointed out, is just as wasteful as monies to be spent creating a smart grid.

I say this with some jest...obviously. But I'm serious about one very important and distinct point: any intelligent transportation system (ITS) requires intelligent people being transported, while any smart grid requires smart energy consumers. Neither of these exist in my America.

It has been said that American consumers everyday weight the costs vs. time, vs. other costs and do a good job about it...but I wholeheartedly disagree. Americans are about as fucking stupid a people as there are regarding energy.

Not two percent are aware of the sources for their electricity. Not three percent are even faintly aware of their sources for gasoline. Not four percent are even faintly aware of the economic, social, and environmental damage their perpetual driving inflicts.

Now we come along with twenty-first century buzzwords like "smart grid" and "ITS," and somehow we're supposed to assume that connecting some fiber-optics with some computer hardware is going to completely transform the traffic patterns of car-dependent Elk Grove...that smart meters and a smart grid are somehow going to completely transform how Elk Grovians use their electricity...

...that somehow, once we connect up all this shit, the typical Elk Grove thru-commuter will be able to drive her minivan from Wilton to Locke without having to stop at a red light, that technology will wirelessly communicate with her batterized minivan to correct any velocity and direction problems, ensuring she can pass comfortably through roadways now capable of handling three times the traffic we do today without any of those bothersome discomforts of idling, waiting, accelerating, or braking...

...that somehow, once we connect up all this shit, her solar panels will charge her battery powered minivan and if some disruption to her local solar insolation occurs the "grid" will automatically switch to her wind turbine in the backyard and if the wind ain't blowing will pull from other PHEVs in other regions where solar intensity is higher than demand...

Really? In our nation without a shred of concern or knowledge about how idiotic we've built out our living arrangements? We're supposed to expect that artificial intelligence will supplant human ignorance? Please.

I am the ultimate skeptic of our Smart Grid, Intelligent Grid, Smart Highways, Intelligent Highways, what have you.