Meshing cars on the grid
Wired’s Autopia has a great article on Robin Chase (of World Resource Institute, Zipcar) on mashing up the electric grid with cars and mesh networks: “The Grid, Our Cars and the Net: One Idea to Link Them All“. It explains what a smart electricity grid is and how cars fit in as network nodes to a mesh network.
And in this case, the current US recession might be a good thing, as Chase points out:
“The time is right, too. There’s $7.2 billion in the stimulus bill for broadband, $4.5 billion for the smart grid and about $5 billion for transportation technology.”
It reminds me of a discussion we had with Richard Hayes at one of the Sydney BarCamps about smart meters in a mesh network.
The Australian gouvernement is planning to spend billions of dollars on faster broadband (up to 100Mbps), which might arrive in five to eight years if we’re lucky, but would probably be too expensive for people to use. UK’s Virgin Media on the other hand is this year about to start testing wideband internet applications at a 200Mbps real-world pilot (not a lab experiment). If only the gouvernement would think ahead, and use that money not just to provide fast internet access but also improve and smarten the electric grid (people still need electricity to get online too, right?), they would get more bang for their buck (a two-in-one solution). I do believe there are issues between federal and state gouvernement, but that really doesn’t make sense (to not have a national electric grid policy). 19th century gouvernement doesn’t work well with current technology.