Hi Jim,
"... the unpredictability of power supplies creates a societal ripple effect. To put it another way, we begin to introduce instability in the pattern of our existence."
The stability of our existence is increasingly dependent, not just intellectually, but from a physical life-sustenance view as well, on technology. I question if each step going forward is able to stand on the accomplishments before it. In other words, from a physical power (and information) infrastructure perspective, are we moving forward in ways that are backwards compatible? Never mind predictable. Are we leveraging what exists already?
The fuel cell concept vs. the regional/grid utility delivery method is very much like the bellhead vs nethead argument, where the new staple of interest (in networking it's smarts, and in power its generation) is moved to the edge and end points, instead of being centralized in the core. My suspicion is that some day the economies of scale arguments will be re-discovered. Or superconducting materials might make transmission more efficient. Who knows. One has to wonder about the drivers that would call for consolidation, in search of economies of scale. Will it re-occur where fragmentation and a more distributive environment has recently taken shape in so many areas of endeavor? Here we focus on telecoms and plower to a great extent, but those two sectors ripple and filter down to everything else in society, as you so astutely noted.
Even if it takes some form of government intervention [holy cow... wow... did I write that?] to break the ice, as in the French nuclear power model you brought to the thread. It keeps ya' thinking, that's fer shir. |
