"Smart" Electric Meters - Anyone have one?

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Reduction of elec. use should be the foremost priority of our government and for us as individuals. However, we will need to replace existing generation capacity and possibly increase capacity going forward. This is where the problem arises.

While I agree that our government's approach is totally back-asswards, nuclear power is probably the best long-term solution to the need to add generation capacity.
The problem is the technology; the goverment wants to spend billions on current nuke tech instead of looking at new nuclear, which is small, clean, and inherently safe. It uses much less nuclear material to accomplish generation and does not pose the same long term hazards as current nuclear systems. IMHO, it certainly is better than coal for the long term.

There are problems with many of the renewable generating technologies as well. Hydro causes destruction of wildlife habitat and displaces people from their homes. Transmission losses from hydro dams to the market make this method very inefficient. Wind power is great, but dependent on the weather and location. Also, there is some evidence that localized disturbances in the atmosphere are caused by concentrations of windmills, and could have an effect on our climate as the numbers of windmills increase. As well, there are finite numbers of windy sites to install the windmills. I speak from experience, as the largest wind farm in Canada is five miles north of my house. Here we are also experimenting with large-scale PV from solar collectors, but this tech is very expensive and largely unproven in the north where our sun exposure is lower.

Right now the Canadian and U.S. governments should be offering incentives to individuals and businesses to install local, small-scale renewable and green technologies to lessen our carbon footprint and lighten the load on the grid. This would be a very good use of the infrastructure funding and would have economic as well as environmental benefits for everyone.

Maybe GM could retool to manufacture wind turbines and PV panels instead of gas-guzzlers!
 
Yes, it would be nice if we, North America, could produce some of the green hardware here. Even GM picking up the capabilities to support/develop wind and solar technology products would be great, but not via Government dictate or control. Managed supply/demand doesn't work.

Indeed, new nuclear power should be with the best technology.

The real problem is too many people, what the world needs is a reduction in the size of the human population.
 
50% would be a great goal. Criteria? China may have the answer, so here in the US while we're giving control over our lives to the federal government, they could do something useful like, one child per family, here I'm taking about birth, not adoption. This could cost far less than the other programs, not to mention the yet to be proposed programs...keep an eye on the news, they are busy in Washington DC while Obama is out of the country doing what he can to give away our sovereignty. Any bill passed with the blessing of Pelosi, he'll sign, and forget the 5 days for public review, this is an emergency.
 
there was another thread here dealing with smart meters, someone in the south west I think got one put in their house, and found that due to the way it was wired they couldn't turn on the a/c when it was the hottest due to "energy savings"
 
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