Obama Outlines 'Smart Grid' Stimulus Spending

Sure enough, as was to be anticipated, Obama spoke in Arcadia, FL this past Tuesday outlining his plan for 'smart grid' spending as a dimension of the stimulus package, detailing how these funds will be spent and tying this into the greater goal of clean-energy advancements in the US. As Business Week writes, "The $3.4 billion injected Oct. 27 is a small down payment on the cost of equipping the U.S. electrical system with smart meters, batteries, and sensors."


GE - Plug Into the Smart Grid

Clean energy technologies, such as direct generation (DG)-- local or residential solar arrays (grid-tied), wind turbines, etc. and other clean and renewable technologies-- can be a burden to the system. The smart grid is a somewhat daunting and eerily futuristic sounding term that simply means upgrading and perfecting the efficiency by which we transport electricity throughout our network, and by reworking this network we can better handle clean energy developments as they unfold.

As the LA Times writes, "A smarter grid, for example, might help hook wind farms in North Dakota with power consumers in Chicago and synchronize those consumers' energy use to match the times when the wind blows strongest."


Obama was on point with clean energy initiatives as a whole, and very optimistic about our country's future:




“The world is now engaged in a peaceful competition to determine the technologies that will power the 21st century. From China to India, from Japan to Germany, nations everywhere are racing to develop new ways to producing and use energy. The nation that wins this competition will be the nation that leads the global economy. I am convinced of that. And I want America to be that nation. It’s that simple.” (WSJ)

The spending he announced will work toward not only the smart grid, but clean energy research at colleges and research facilities throughout the country and will ultimately create the green jobs of the future, as the White House Suggests:

“There are those who will suggest that moving toward clean energy will destroy our economy--" Obama suggested of his opponents in his now standard allusive fashion, "when it’s the system we currently have that endangers our prosperity and prevents us from creating millions of new jobs.” (WSJ)


http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/oct2009/tc20091027_594339.htm
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-obama-energy27-2009oct27,0,6261729.story?track=rss
http://www.winknews.com/news/local/66736462.html
http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2009/10/23/obama-lots-of-clean-energy-talk-little-on-climate/