January 06, 2010

When Tommy Carmichael -- the world's greatest slot machine cheat -- wanted to illegally coax coins out of Las Vegas slot machines, his first step was to get his hands on the machine he wanted to cheat. He was successful at beating the best electronic security that slot machine engineers could design and milked hundreds of thousands of dollars before he got arrested.

Coincidentally, Las Vegas was the scene last July where the supposed security flaws of smart meters were unmasked. That event still has meter makers, utilities, standards organizations and federal regulators talking or hard at work improving security.

Sunday, 03 January 2010

President Obama and the United States Environmental Protection Agency are gearing up to put the nation on a low-carbon diet and their strategy would do Weight Watchers proud: Count first, cut later.

The counting began Jan. 1, when some 10,000 companies and other entities, including municipalities and even some universities, must start measuring their greenhouse gas emissions.

And while it's uncertain when mandatory cuts will be announced -- and whether Congress or the EPA will act first -- the law firm of Plunkett Cooney said polluters might want to start dieting sooner rather than later because their GHG emissions, down to the plant level, will become part of the public record after March 31, 2011.

Sunday, 03 January 2010

The United States Advanced Battery Consortium LLC, an organization whose members are Chrysler Group LLC, Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co., is seeking requests for proposal information (RFPIs) for four projects related to advanced battery development for hybrid electric, plug-in hybrid electric and electric vehicles.

USABC's four RFPIs, for consideration of contracts that will include a 50 percent minimum cost share by developers, are for:

• development of advanced high performance batteries for electric vehicle (EV) applications;
• development of advanced energy storage systems for high-power, lower energy-energy storage system (LEESS) for power-assist hybrid electric vehicle (PAHEV) applications;
• development of advanced high-performance batteries for plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) applications; and
• a technology assessment of proposed advanced battery technologies for EV applications.

January 04, 2010

The New Year is ringing in renewed hope. And so it is with the framers of the most recent global climate change accord. And while those advocates for change have fallen short of winning approval to make immediate and deep cuts in carbon emissions, they are vowing to continue their fight into 2010.

With 192 nations having joined the Copenhagen talks, firm obligations were always considered elusive. Most in the global community did express the desire to gradually transform their energy production. But only a core element made the steadfast pledge to notably reduce their carbon emissions. As such, the parties will keep working and striving to reach the air quality standards that they say are necessary.

December 30, 2009

The utility industry is getting older. By some estimates, nearly half of today's workforce will be eligible for retirement in the next decade. Years of hard-won knowledge seem doomed to disappear just as utilities are implementing smart grid initiatives and benefiting from improved data collection and opportunities for advanced customer communications and energy efficiency. Is this a perfect storm?

Are veteran utility leaders dreaming about golf courses and easy chairs rather than smart grid technologies just when their experience is most needed? Philadelphia-based PECO Energy, which serves approximately 2 million electric and natural gas customers in southeastern Pennsylvania, and the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) in California don't think so.