I really like your idea for decentralized power generation, but I can see where there would be some serious issues. For example, what if people decided to rig their generators to just power themselves? It's my power, they say, let other people worry about how they get theirs.

I tend to think of the switch from centralized filesharing (a la Napster) to decentralized filesharing as a good comparison. It didn't make a darn bit of difference if someone was "sharing" or not in the Good Old Days because everything was regulated by the central servers, but now, if everyone decided to turn off sharing, nothing would be shared. True, this hasn't happened yet, but it very well could. The same could happen to your power idea without some real serious laws in place.

You make an interesting argument Dan. Is the basic argument for getting off the grid (or creating a peer-to-peer system) that it will avoid huge outages when a single power source goes offline? If so, the idea of everyone having their own power generation seems incredibly inefficient. Isn't one big wind turbine shared amongst a community better than everyone having a wind turbine in their own back yard? One construction cost, one turbine to maintain, and less land used. Maybe there should be more power generating centers than there are currently, but I'd think a larger-scale operation than on an individual or even neighborhood basis would make more economic and environmental sense.

There are four elements: generation (making), transmission (moving large), distribution (moving small) and retail (using). The grid is really only transmission - the wholesale movement of juice. The Ontario Energy Board has a very fair and useful rule we have to deal with (we distributors and prospective generators) on embedded generation which is what you are talking about: http://www.oeb.gov.on.ca/html/en/industryrelations/ongoingprojects_ministersdirective_connection.htm. There will be a test at 6 pm.

This newish rule allows anyone within a distribution network to feed back in and thence (which I only use due to my knowledge of you love of the word "thence") into the transmission grid. One wind turbine at 1.5 Mw is really a distribution scale issue. Trouble is one turbine is not necessarily economically feasible given some of the costs involved - land, administration, volume purchase of the equipment. Five to 30 turbines is a nice workable figure which still feeds a community which is also tied to the grid for back-up.

Consider the Kensington-New Annan, PEI example. Rural residences with a nice town and a large industrial complex. The fry plants probably suck 8 to 12 Mw and the residences maybe another 4 to 7. A good scale for local production but only if the transmission grid is tied into it as a bank. The wind feeds the community when it has wind and when there is no wind the community draws off it.

As it is roughly a million a megawatt, 12 towers might feed them. At a 10% simple interest calculation, they have to pay for themselves in ten years but the community could probably amortize them over 30 and the difference is your reason for doing the project from a costs benefit perspective.

Are we not seeing the emergence of an "Internet" design where there is no centre any more?

This Alan was my my underlying point about PEI being a have not province. The US is much less concentrated geographically than we are. The UK is all about a 100 mile spread around London. The outlying regions are designed into dependency.

Power seems to me the first step in breaking this. I think that ytou are spot on that our local optimal design may not be a windmill on my property for me ut say 5 mwt in Stratford and say 5 in Cornwall and as these blocks are built -m we build out to fill in the gaps. I bet we can end up with 300 plus and sell the balance into the US or to the rest of Atlantic Canada.

If we do this then PEI as a whole is enriched provided that we design it so that "we" own it. I think that two strategic points are to have as an aim to get PEI off oil, its price and those who deal in it. Secondly it is to create a surplus so that for the first time we have capital too invest in productive assets.

You have given a lot of thought and know a lot more than any one else that I hear from. How best can we "own" this without screwing it up?

"Be the grid" is the new "Get off the grid".

Here is an interesting related article:

http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/002687.html

I know that all of you are against leaving the grid, but the advocacy of leaving the grid comes from engineers who have seen the design as inefficient, and not as something that is rebellious. If you really think of a grid as napster, you can also remember the times when napster shut down and no one retrieved any music. Also, when there were a lot of people using the system, it became bogged down and slow. Utility companies don't have much money to put new plants into the centralized system. Many decentralization options only detail that we break up the grid into 8 to 10 parts so that there won't be fluctuations as energy demand increases. It is more like correlating a skinny man who can do a lot of work and retrieve very little energy to do the same work in comparison of a really fat man (our grid is like a 500 lb. man) trying to do the same work, alongside the fact that it is slow and inefficient. There are some tree-huggers that are trying to leave the grid, and their cause is more individualistic. But from an engineering point of view, the grid is too goddamn big and it needs to be cut into 8 slices, or it will outright not work when we don't have enough energy to meet demand in the ocming years. People always say we will have enough energy and efficiency in our country. Well let's remember the richest country had huge blackouts in its most important most populated areas (California, NYC) in the last three years. Let's wake up people, decentralizing is like an insurance plan against these occurences. Even if they don't happen again, do you want to wing the rest of your life on no back-up plan to find out this system might be faulty? You don't do it with your health or your house, which is why they are probably insured. well, c'mon, think about the energy insurance, since it powers your very existence.

Hey Dan, I think what you are seeing is not rebellion towards the power grid or cost of it for that matter. I believe it has to do with the inclining age of the baby boomers and the fact they have spent their lives watching technology (Pong) grow and build itself into a massive machine capable of solving vertually and problem. The problem is none of it has made us any happier....perhaps Laura Ingles from little house on the prarrie has tought us all something.
Keep it simple baby...
Cheers
Dave

I thought the idea behind getting "off the grid" was to contribute more power to the grid itself. To site a less-than-popular reality show, Ed Begley & Bill Nye compete to see who's house can be more "green." Between the two of them, I recall Ed being the first one able to contribute power back to the grid via installation of solar panels and a wind turbine on his property.

I think any shift in the overall paradigm is usually considered "rebellious" at first. Hopefully, though, this "green" rebellion becomes a new way of life.

In fact, I would vote to implement tax subsidies to help homeowners who wish to contribute to this change. I think it's a far better idea than subsidizing a "gas tax vacation."

Free energy via the harnessing of sustainable resources like solar, wind, geothermal, & natural electricity would be a great step in the right direction.

I am under the impression that anytime we can reduce the drain on an overloaded system such as our aging power grid we are doing the earth and our pockets a huge favour. I also think that treating the grid like napster is a little overzealous because the 5000 dollar startup cost wasnt part of Napster. I think what the power companys should do is give homeowners a more realistic re-bate for bieng in a grid tie system thus providing power to the overloaded system and making it worth our cost of start up and maintenance.
Most of the reason people go completely off the grid is simply because the power companys wont pay what we deserve for helping out our fellow "neighbours" and the earth.
Getting one house off the grid pays divedends to the environment! Getting re-newable energy into the grid pays dividends to the environment so why should the power companys expect to get richer off our hard work!