Wi-Fi, WiMAX and Wireless Technologies Interoperability with Electricity Grids, translated into the new buzzword "Smart Grid", enabling the whole electricity supply chain to be managed and controlled using Internet Protocol (IP) networks and undoubtedly those networks are likely to be based on the new IPv6. This would certainly have a positive environmental impact, however, given the economic downturn currently experienced, the real motivation may just be the $20bn annual worth of this emerging market after Obama's approval of the US Stimulus Package, injecting billions of dollars in environmentally friendly industrial and technological initiatives!





I am not going to explain the technicalities and the whole technology behind the Smart Grid issue, for that, you can consult authoritative sources such as below or others. what I am hopping to achieve is an environmental technology debate, the question of whether our capital greed can suddenly and justifiably make us environmentally conscious or are we only seen to be so. Among the fundamentals of environmental consciousness is sacrifice, are those companies and their leaders sacrificing anything!


What exactly is a Smart Grid!

“A true Smart Grid enables multiple applications to operate over a shared, interoperable network, similar in concept to the way the Internet works today.”, comments Katie Fehrenbacher in an earth2tech article http://earth2tech.com/2009/01/26/faq-smart-grid/, quoting Foundation Capital's note on the market

If anyone can, Cisco certainly can do a good job, pioneers and innovators in internet and computing solutions combined, Cisco earns its place in what I would call "The Seven Computing and Internet Pillars" in no particular order, IBM, Sun Microsystems, Microsoft, Intel, Apple, HP or Dell are the beating hearts and veins of personal and business computing, but when it comes to networking technology and infrastructure, Cisco is the main skeleton, nerve centre and backbone of Internet networks.

It does certainly make sense to clean up our act in reducing computing energy consumption, wireless internet interoperability with electricity grids would gain approval from the well known environmental lobbyists and activists such as greenpeace ( http://www.greenpeace.org/international/) to the new and the lesser known You Save The planet (http://yousavetheplanet.com/) with its charismatic leader Brian Gillingham at the helm. Electrical networks are no different, with up-to-date modernization, efficiency, security and better control, we can achieve energy waste reduction which will lead to lesser environmental damage.

Cisco Systems is the leading champion of the whole Smart Grid initiative, "The smart grid augments the electricity network with sensors, controllers, data communications, computers and software to distribute energy with greater economy, efficiency, reliability and security. New technology increasingly makes possible the extension of the smart grid all the way to residential users and even into their homes.", comments Larry Lang, vice president and general manager of the Services and Mobility Business Unit at Cisco Systems.

One of the highlights of the Smart Grid is what Cisco had to say in its press release on May 18th 2009, "Electricity outages cost U.S. industry about $50 billion per year, according to EPRI (Electrical Power Research Institute). A Smart Grid will significantly reduce the impact of these outages in the future and will also reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 60 to 211 million metric tons of CO2 annually in 2030, according to EPRI estimates." If this is implemented in the world's larger power houses, we'll be talking of genuine and considerable reduction in pollution at a much larger scale.

The interoperable smart grid is not new and was thought of before, so why the sudden rush in championing the idea right now. The short answer in our opinion is, there is money in it now, and lots of it to be made. Furthermore, companies adopting and implementing the idea into their manufacturing, software engineering, business policies as well as R&D and Human Resources are likely to attract and gain favors, be they tax allowances, grants, positive public opinion, free promotion, brand positioning and a whole lot more besides the obvious dead cert high profit margins in a declining economic and financial climate.

Talking of ordinary household electricity consumers when the Smart Grid is in place, a Cisco representative told the BBC in an interview "Ultimately, this can help users see where their power is being used and from that you can see where it is being wasted and thus save on your electricity bills.". Well that may be the case now, but was it not the case five, ten years ago, and why this has not been adopted sooner!

Besides Cisco, IBM, AT&T, Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile and more are getting their donkey (careful here) into gear, mobile or wireless internet like electric supplies and networks surely seem a good attraction. For some consumers, that would be for the sake of savings and control if anything, but for some would be the feel-good factor and environmental consciousness. For those companies is definitely the capital gains no doubt!

Computing, telecommunications, mobile devices and the internet have had a positive effect on our environment, despite job losses in many sectors, email replacing paper mail, online or emailed statement for all sorts of hard copy, from banks, electric and gas bills, to electronic publications and even books instead of hard copy, online news instead of the print media, the list goes on and on. To be able to manage and control one's power consumption and reduce waste to an acceptable environmental standard using computing and wireless network technology is a step in the right direction. The Smart Grid is no doubt one of the stars of the stimulus package show, it's the hypocrisy of the audience that is in the spot-light here!

We have seen this before and that is still happening, a whole array of companies in the Recycling Industry benefiting from government legislation and all sorts of help packages, for many, that funding is finding its way into the fat-cats pockets and the toxic industrial waste is finding its way into people's lungs and blood streams in the Ivory Cost, Bangladesh and southern and central African countries among others as illegal dumping grounds. I am not saying there is any close similarity here, but scrutiny and public responsibility have to play a vital role in insuring those funds and financial incentives serve their purpose from up and down the hierarchy, larger and well respected companies are expected to stay in-line, it's the trickling down effect of those help packages reaching smaller companies and businesses one should be worried about.

When some people dubbed President Obama as "the Messiah" or "The Savior", I would agree to some extent without reluctance on the stays-quo, but is Obama saving industrial giant's CEOs, members of their boards and Chairmen, who are set to cash in on an astronomically emerging market, saving the economy as a whole, or the environment itself. Some may argue, he is delegating savings for all, as demand is created thanks to the stimulus package, jobs are created to meet that demand, supplies are produced by the people employed, those in turn create demand in other areas for products and services as their standard of living ameliorates. The latter will result in even more demand and job creation, resulting in yet an other demand supply chain, hence some restoration if not all to the American as well as the world economy. As to the environment, at least now the world economy has almost grinded to a halt, an opportunity has arisen for "back to the drawing board", to reshape environmental micro and macro policies by legislators, politicians, scientists and industrialists alike, and this is well overdue.

When the going was good, nobody wanted to know, profit margins were good, so why bother, and they didn't. From an environmental perspective, it is probably the best thing that has happened to this planet despite the sad hardship and suffering in varying degrees from one nation to another, but that is probably also meant you have to be "cruel to be kind", nature around us surely did what it had to do to show us a very small doze of its cruelty as a wakeup call to prevent us from a real doomsday. If we haven't learned anything yet from that now, we'll never have time to learn in twenty or thirty years time.

If the world's power houses such India, China, Brazil could afford to introduce similar stimulus packages geared towards achieving positive environmental goals with a true alliance and joint efforts with the U.S, Russia and the European Community, putting aside any political or cultural differences, one could see an even better progress. Shared technological and scientific advances rather than protectionism, agreements on common world technological standards instead of disparity and incompatibilities would lead to healthier distribution of, not "wealth" as that is no longer fashionable, but "survival"!

Cleaning house does not just mean declaring and paying back wrongly claimed expenses by members of a particular parliament, it should go further as to see people in governments being elected on their true and sole commitment to a better environment, and their proof of "fit for election" should be their willingness and track record in sacrifice. There are only a handful of people, past and present who can fit that description, like them or hate them, Mandela, Gandhi, Jesus of Nazareth and mother Teresa, sure there are few more, but that is an example of people who demonstrated a track record in sacrifice which means they did not have an ounce of greed in their sole. They relinquished power when they did not have to, they lived a humble life when they could live in golden palaces, and shared and promoted caring and sharing among their people when they could keep all to themselves. Sure, Obama has so far demonstrated an honorable commitment despite lacking in the latter track record, what we need to see are industry leaders "converting" not purely for material gain, but for real and genuine non-profit environmental goals.

For further sources on the Smart Grid technology (themselves can lead to other interesting links), visit:
earth2tech: http://earth2tech.com/2009/01/26/faq-smart-grid/
Cisco Systems: http://blogs.cisco.com/sp/comments/mobile_internet_meets_smart_grid/
BBC News: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8056083.stm
Cisco Systems press release: http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2009/prod_051809.html

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