Technology <> Energy

I'm not a fringe lunatic because of my contemptuous belief in our future smart grid. I just question the end result...that's all. I personally believe that technology <> energy and the more technology we throw at our smart grid, the more energy we will end up consuming, both on a total basis and on a per capita basis.

Look what energy efficiency has brought your household: five TVs instead of three; two refrigerators instead of one; six wireless phone outlets to eliminate all that bothersome walking to the other room to field a call; a larger housal unit -- requiring a six ton 16 SEER AC unit instead of a four ton 11 SEER unit because your 3,360 sq ft Garage Majal needs the additional cooling.

Look what technology has brought your household: a DVR on each TV, along with a cable box or satellite receiver, or a digital converter box if you don't have either of those; plasma HDTVs that consume more power than the original cathode ray tube you had in your living room; a blue ray player and an HD DVD player 'cause you didn't know which format was gonna win; sixteen different AC adaptors to accommodate all those must-have-at-all-times electronics like Boysenberries, iPhones, and iPods.

On top of my firm belief that we will save precisely nothing through technological improvements to our grid comes this fantastic summary provided by General Electric's Smart Grid Solutions Team in the latest IEEE Power & Energy Journal:

• Smart grids are not really about doing things a lot differently than the way they are today. Rather, they are about doing more of what we already do --...leveraging existing technologies to a greater extent while driving a higher level of integration to realize the synergies across enterprise integration.

What the fuck does that mean?

You know, it doesn't really matter what it means, except that you can be assured smart grid isn't about you. It's all about expanding the role the electric provider has in providing its service to you; the role that a handful of actors, including the utilities themselves, will have in creating the technologies the electric provider will use. Google, Cisco, Control4, Trilliant-- all of them vying for their own slice of that smart pie, to own the operating system for the future Home Area Network, in-home displays for energy management, to become owners of the communication protocols required for your grid connectivity; to establish the connections for variable pricing markets that may soon be the only way for you pay for your electricity.

It's no stretch of anyone's imagination that someday you'll be able to contract for the Friends & Family Electric Plan, where you pay your own rate for charging your Palm Pilot at anyone's house who also subscribes to Your Circle. You'll get access to all your Rollover Watts, with unlimited text messaging from your home energy management device. You will be able to day-trade your kilowatts; you'll be able to buy your own power on the GridPoint spot market or arrange for bilateral energy contracting with a rooftop PV owner in Kansas. You'll be able to sell power you don't use; you'll offer decremental bids for energy via your Boysenberry while commuting into work.

And with each and every market transaction, with each on-line review of your energy usage patterns, and each time you just plug your old incandescent lamp into the wall socket -- someone's gonna fuck you out of a little more of your time and money.