[ExI] The Smart Grid Smart Transport System (SGSTS).

[hkhenson]

At 02:35 PM 10/17/2007, Jeff Davis wrote:

snip

>I think Eugen was the first to mention here(though it's otherwise an
>old concept) the use of roof-top PV as a widespread decentralized
>power generation system.   I would add to that a road surface PV
>system.

Do you have the *least* idea of the engineering and maintenance 
problems you would have with a PV surface on the roads?  Talk to an 
engineer or better yet the grunts that work on road surfaces.  Pre 
smart matter, this is just impossible.  Post smart matter I doubt 
anyone will care.

>This dual use strategy adds substantial power collection area
>without using up more land.  Electrifying the roadway, that is making
>the electricity available to the vehicles on the road, would merely be
>an additional feature of an SGSTS system.

Again, how are you going to transfer the energy to the 
vehicles?  What's it going to cost?  How is it going to be maintained?

>The electric vehicles, the roadway system, and the larger power grid
>would all communicate and deploy their resources in a coordinated
>fashion.  This coordination gives the system its "smartness" and
>delivers substantial benefits.
>
>Vehicles for the most part drive themselves, and receive the necessary
>location, local road and traffic condition, and other vital data from
>the system, which obviously would be thoroughly networked with a wider
>world data network (www v5.0).  Safety, energy efficiency, and time
>savings would be substantial.  Trucks would convoy nose to tail
>markedly reducing energy use by reducing drag.  (An adjunct to road
>transport would be high speed vacuum tunnel trains, further increasing
>time savings and further reducing energy costs.)  All vehicles would
>have their routing coordinated so there would be very little stop and
>go, which reduces travel time and eliminates losses from unnecessary
>acceleration and braking (the latter in any event would be
>regenerative).
>
>Each individual electric vehicle would have a battery pack of
>appropriate capacity, and the combined inventory of hundreds of
>millions (billions worldwide) of these "energy storage units"  would
>be "smartly" connected to the larger power grid and employed(in the
>many hours when not actually on the road and consuming electricity) in
>a load smoothing function.  The capital costs of power generation
>would thus be reduced because vehicle batteries would be charged at
>night when power consumption would otherwise be low and expensive
>power generation infrastructure otherwise operating well below (ie
>wastefully) capacity.
>
>These are the kinds of benefits to be derived from the information
>revolution.  This is what "smart" means when we speak of smart cars
>and roads and houses and business, etc.
>
>Tip of the "smart" iceberg.
>
>Are we having fun yet?  He he he he.

Ah.  Joke. Sorry.

Keith