Free Republic

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump—like his opponent Hillary Clinton—spoke glowingly about infrastructure spending, alluding to Franklin Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration and Dwight Eisenhower’s Interstate Highway System as examples of how spending on roads, bridges and airports helped unite the country. For 2017, the American Society of Civil Engineers has given America’s infrastructure an overall grade of D+, estimating it would cost more than $4 trillion to upgrade properly. But President Trump’s $1 trillion dollar, 10-year infrastructure plan has so far moved along at a halting pace. This tortoise-like process may offer an opportunity to think more strategically about...

Making the electricity grid greener is boosting its vulnerability to computer hacking, increasing the risk that spies or criminals can cause blackouts. Adding wind farms, solar panels and smart meters to the power distribution system opens additional portals through which hackers can attack the grid, according to computer security experts advising governments and utilities. Where traditionally the grid took power from a few sources, it’s now absorbing it from thousands.

The Obama administration is spending billions of dollars to modernize the nation’s power grid, with the goal of changing the way Americans use energy. Your electric bill will go way up, unless you allow the utility to control your energy load at times of peak demand. “Smart grid” technology involves a wireless, two-way flow of information between individual homes and the power plant. This allows the utility to charge more for electricity, depending on when it is used; and it enables the utility to manage energy for the consumer, to reduce the impact on the grid.

<p>ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has signed a law requiring manufacturers of thermostats with mercury to collect their old temperature controls in an effort to keep mercury out of the environment.</p> <p>The measure requires they establish collection programs and in 2015 start filing annual reports on collections.</p>

Regulation: No longer the stuff of science fiction, a little-noticed change in energy-efficiency requirements for appliances could lead to government controlling the power used in your home and how you set your thermostat. In a seemingly innocuous revision of its Energy Star efficiency requirements announced June 27, the Environmental Protection Agency included an "optional" requirement for a "smart-grid" connection for customers to electronically connect their refrigerators or freezers with a utility provider. The feature lets the utility provider regulate the appliances' power consumption, "including curtailing operations during more expensive peak-demand times." So far, manufacturers are not required to include the...

A forum hosted by the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission to explore potential impacts of alternative fuel vehicles on critical infrastructure heard a good news, bad news scenario from the CEO of the PJM Interconnection, the regional grid operator. PJM CEO Terry Boston told the forum that with smart grid controls in place and re-charging properly synchronized between midnight and 7 a.m., the electric distribution system could accommodate 25 million EVs, according to coverage of the forum in the Philadelphia Inquirer. But without those controls, the scenario will look a lot different, Boston warned. "If all of those came home at...

In an astonishing display of hypocrisy, NBC News repeatedly decried Mitt Romney using celebrity businessman Donald Trump to fundraise for his campaign. This is the same Donald Trump who hosts NBC reality shows The Apprentice and The Celebrity Apprentice and who routinely appears on the Today show to promote those programs, including just last week. On Tuesday's Today, correspondent Peter Alexander declared that Trump "causes heartburn for some in the Republican Party because of his insistence on renewing questions about where the President was born." He later wrapped up his report by parroting Obama campaign talking points: "The Obama campaign...

“We're in a state of crisis,” said Chalk. “The front door is open and there is no lock to be had. There is not a power meter or device on the grid that is protected from hacking - if not already infected - with some sort of trojan horse that can cause the grid to be shut down or completely annihilated.” “One of the most amazing things that has happened to mankind in the last 100 years is the Internet. It's given us possibility beyond our wildest imagination. But we also know the vulnerabilities that exist inside of it. And...

The U.S. electric grid was not designed to meet the increased demands of a restructured electricity marketplace, the energy needs of a digital society or the increased use and variability of renewable power production. For these reasons, we call today’s power grid “dumb.” Conversely, we call the anti-dote to this stupidity the “smart grid.” This “smart grid” will ensure high levels of reliability, enhance economic productivity and reduce the environmental impact of producing electricity, according to the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007.

Everyday you go through your usual routine. You wake up to the alarm, take a hot shower, cook breakfast and drive to work. Then at the end of your day you drive home, cook dinner and try to relax by surfing the Internet or watching TV before you go to sleep and do it all again tomorrow. Many of us take it for granted that our daily routine is a private ritual, that no one else on the face of the earth is aware of exactly what we are doing at any one time in the privacy of our own...

An administrative law judge for the Colorado Public Utilities Commission has approved Xcel Energy Inc.’s SmartGrid City project, and will allow the utility to charge Colorado customers $44.5 million to cover costs associated with the project. In his ruling, Adams said Xcel must keep information obtained from customers using the Smart Grid system private, and the utility must track intellectual property or patent rights that rise from the project. When Xcel launched SmartGrid City in March 2008, the utility billed the project as a $100 million test of various technologies that would upgrade the electricity grid in Boulder. Xcel thought...

When the wind blows, water heaters fire up Mason County PUD No. 3 and the Bonneville Power Administration and announced today that they are partnering on a smart grid pilot project to help manage the electricity grid and use wind power more effectively. The project address two fundamental bottlenecks in the power grid; congestion during times of high power use and the imbalance created when more wind-powered energy is being generated than is being used. “Homeowners who choose to participate in this pilot project can help the region ease strain on the region’s electrical system,” said Bonneville Power’s Smart Grid...

"Who controls the off switch?" by Ross Anderson and Shailendra Fuloria. Abstract: We're about to acquire a significant new cybervulnerability. The world's energy utilities are starting to install hundreds of millions of 'smart meters' which contain a remote off switch. Its main purpose is to ensure that customers who default on their payments can be switched remotely to a prepay tariff; secondary purposes include supporting interruptible tariffs and implementing rolling power cuts at times of supply shortage. The off switch creates information security problems of a kind, and on a scale, that the energy companies have not had to face...

Perhaps you've heard of the Smart Grid initiative. Perhaps you understand that the goal of the initiative is to improve and modernize the nation's power transmission and distribution networks. Maybe your electric utility has even installed a Smart Meter at your home or business. What you probably don't know is that the Smart Grid movement is the Trojan Horse of the green agenda, a step toward Cap & Trade. Since the time of grid pioneer Samuel Insull, the goal of utilities everywhere has been to balance generation capacity against electrical demand to ensure system integrity. Curiously, this goal is shared in...

Why does Fannie Mae, a government mortgage finance company, have a patent on a device that would allow the government to turn off the energy in your home whenever they want to? The device is put into the outlets in your home and cannot be removed without a special device. Love him or hate him, Glenn Beck and his staff have possibly uncovered something big with this..if cap-and-trade passes, this could be what is coming our way..Among those helping with this investigation is Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvM4tjNnQIo

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) - Spies hacked into the U.S. electric grid and left behind computer programs that would let them disrupt service, exposing potentially catastrophic vulnerabilities in key pieces of national infrastructure, a former U.S. government official said Wednesday. The intrusions were discovered after electric companies gave the government permission to audit their systems, the ex-official said. The official was not authorized to discuss the matter and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. [Snip] "The vulnerability may be bigger than we think," the official said, adding that the level of sophistication necessary to pull off such...

"FCC’s Broadband Plan Sets Groundwork for National Smart Grid To Transition To More Green Energy Use: Electric Cars, Solar Panels" SNIPPET: "(CNSNews.com) – The National Broadband Plan, recently published by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), would lay the groundwork for the federal government to establish a nationwide “smart” electrical grid that would change how Americans use and pay for electricity, affecting such things as homes and transportation with battery-powered cars. The proposal, published March 16, outlines the federal government’s plan to use the nation’s broadband Internet infrastructure to further key national policy goals, including health care, education, and energy. The...

Sustainable consumption? Reconfiguring businesses, infrastructure and institutions? What do these words mean? They do not mean merely reshuffling the existing order, but rather replacing it with a completely new economic system, one that has never before been seen or used in the history of the world. This paper will demonstrate that the current crisis of capitalism is being used to implement a radical new economic system that will completely supplant it. This is not some new idea created in the bowels of the United Nations: It is a revitalized implementation of Technocracy that was thoroughly repudiated by the American public...

"The diversity of the Northland area is why the conglomeration of neighborhoods was chosen for an AEP Ohio demonstration project that calls for the installation of 110,000 "smart meters." The meters not only enable the company to bill customers for their power usage, but could allow customers to control the amount of their bill. An AEP customer service representative gave a presentation on the "gridSMART" project at last week's meeting of the Northland Community Council. Virtually all of the Northland area was included in the pilot program that covers 150 square miles and encompasses parts of Columbus, Gahanna, Whitehall, Bexley,...

Cap & Tax for North Little Rock Some more video of the North Little Rock Council Meeting and the decision of Ward 3.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPPfNzmangk _________________________________ On January 11th, the North Little Rock City Council approved R10-01, the Integrated Resource Plan to be implemented immediately. A presentation was made by Mike Russ of the North Little Rock Electric Department. The presentation was made quickly and had no handouts for the public, but there were slides of their plan shown at the meeting. The plan involves creating a "smart grid" adding "smart meters" "programs to control powerload", and ways NLR can "reduce it's...