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Lead Acid Batteries: How Cheap Beat Cool at Google

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Smart Grid: Powering Us Out of Recession

We need to do two seemingly contradictory things before the energy situation improves.
1. Nationalize the grid,
2. Micro-localize energy production and storage.
The local monopolies held by power companies are preventing forward progress. We have too many "Mr. Burns and Homer Simpsons" running the power supply ... one blinded by greed, the other satisfied to sit on his ass forever. Look at the lightning speed with which communications changed once Ma Bell was broken up. Look at how quickly the federal government was able to develop the Interstate system.
Central production of energy is wasteful (a large proportion is lost in transmission and friction) and it's strategically dangerous.
We have been lucky so far that the giant blackouts in the North have only happened in the summer. Try one in the middle of a cold winter and thousands of people could die … millions could become refugees. During the Great Depression you could chop up the furniture and stick in the boiler to get heat. Today a modern gas furnace won't even light without grid power. Even the gas is supplied by an electronic valve that stops working without electricity.
If the outage lasted long enough to freeze pipes the damage would be in the Trillions and make 9/11 look like a holiday.
A NG powered fuel cell in every basement that supplies heat and power would be more efficient than grid electricity, greener, and with economies of scale probably no more expensive than what the average home owner pays for a furnace and water heater.
Supplement that with solar and wind where appropriate and everyone would be happier, healthier and safer. PLUG, GE, and United Tech...all have fuel cell products ready to go, but it will take a disaster before anyone unseats Mr. Burns.
Ask yourself, has the power plant in your area done anything new in 30 years? How much more black coal smoke do we need in the atmosphere? Has the electric meter or wires coming to your house changed in the last 50 years? If not, maybe it's time.
In the early 80s we could not have imagined the iPhone. Imagine what a consumer market could do for energy!