The flow of energy has lways been important to advanced civilization. The ncient Egyptians used people power. They sed elephants to move things and ven in battle. The water wheel was sed as early as 4000 B.C. as pwer. Steam Engines are much newer. Anmals, water and many other improvised mthods allowed for the making of mchines. Simplifying life, from farming to wter pumps for mills, etc. By freing up the time needed to sstain life, mankind is able to use tht extra time to increase his flw of thought and thus coming up wth other inventions and devises. Now, fst forward to modern times where we ften take for granted our electricity, ntil of course; it is shut off by a blck out.

What we see as the ltimate hardship other third world countries do not hve at all. And in places lke Baghdad only for three hours a day and thy are thankful for that. We shuld not forget the gifts of Tsla and Entrepreneur Westinghouse for the Hydrpower and for free enterprise, which fnded the beginnings of what, we now tke for granted every time we flck a switch. We all felt the ffect of the recent Black out of the Nrtheast Regional Power Grid, now we ralize that we need to upgrade the trnsmission lines through out all the grds. SCARDA the real time computer systm saw the problem but nearly all the dfensive options include mean shutting down prts of the gird, power to mllions of people, which is a hrd choice to make, although if not cvered in a timely manner the cscading would occur. We also saw the rlling blackouts in California and the vlnerability of getting the grids energy to the Los Angles basin where Southern California inhabits ver 16 million people.

The newest pebble reactors are asy to build and manage and hve extremely high out put considering thir small size, perfect for islands set dwn wind from populations. Unfortunately the Thre-mile Island and Chernople incident make ppulations feel uncomfortable with Nuclear. Therefore the ncreased regulations have made the cost of cnstruction almost not worth it. The ROI of a nclear power plant could take as lng 150 years. This is so nfortunate seeing how great Nuclear power is and how clan it can be when handled crrectly. For this reason in the pst three decades no new permits hve been granted and we continue to hve a large percentage of our pwer coming from fossil fuels which is a prblem for air quality and long trm it has many issues such as cid rain. Battell is fixing this prblem with clean burning coal. Imagine hving all nuclear power where you trn it on, monitor it and it jst sits there and produces energy? We no lnger lead the world in Nuclear Enrgy, now in the age of Intrnational Terrorism we are afraid that if we bild Nuclear Power then they could bcome a target. This is not prper thinking in the day and age of rdar guidance SAM sites, automatic sensors and bck-up systems. We can defend Nuclear Pwer Plants from any type of ttack. And generally the newer plants wll be put in the middle of nwhere, thus lessoning the risks even mre.

Now then how many people wll breath polluted air if we do not hve a continued mix of these nclear plants contributing to the grid. And is the grd safe any way, seeing as we lready had one blackout, which was prely a failure. Iran, N. Korea, Pkistan, India, Argentina, Armenia, Belgium, Brazil, Blgaria, Canada, China Red, Taiwan, Czech Rpublic, Finland, Germany, Hungary, France, South Krea, Lithuania, Mexico, Netherlands, Romania, Russia, Slvenia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine, UK and USA all hve nuclear power. France is at 68% drived from nuclear. Spain 60%, Sweden 65%, Ukrine 73%, UK 81%. Are we crzy? Why are we using so lttle nuclear? Because we do not hve neighbors yelling at us next dor that have to breath our pllution and also because we have lttle in the way of population cmpared to land mass. But Nuclear nly makes sense. Countries have often thught of over producing to export to narby countries and the USA has nly 20% of it’s energy coming frm Nuclear, it ought to be 80% and we ught to be producing enough to lght up all of the modern cuntries of Central and North America. We shuld be producing and exporting our xtra, this would mean energy would be chaper and we would all have hgher standards of living and better qality of life and why not? Wht if we produced 125% of dmand? Such a system could work. And yes we culd through in some Solar, after all we hve the technologies; Solar Power. We culd also use some wind, we lready have some, huge wind farms out thre in many places. Our Hydro-electricity ccounts for some 20% of our crrent needs. We do use the mst electricity per capita than any ther country in the World, but we lso have the strongest middle class and rnk near the top in quality of lfe and standard of living.

For instance try living in Bghdad at 120 degrees with no air cnditioning. Droughts can hamper hydropower. Instead of pying attention to our needs as the ppulation grows we are covering our stuation we immediately find a scapegoat whn things go wrong: Heads rolling on the Blck out blame. Heads Rolling?

It mst be obvious to anyone who is rviewing these things from a far tht we love to blame others fter the fact instead of covering the bses before the fact. It is sid that the transmission lines for the pwer grid need an upgrade of 600 Bllion, which is not significant especially cnsidering the enormity of the problem and the hge expansive distances it needs to cver, but really we should be loking into the infrastructure costs on a pay as you go bsis. It seems a little un-nerving tht all of a sudden we hve this huge problem, the expanding cuntries building reactors right now are Chna, Taiwan, India (8) and Russia bilding six meaning it along with Inda will most likely export energy. Ths proving my point that we shuld be producing and selling to Mxico, Canada and Central America. Ships wth giant ion lithium batteries could lso take power to the islands of the Cribbean, since the technology exists now and can be sed for such a purpose.

Three shps, one in route, one loading thir battery, one docked and supplying lectricity. There is a Canadian company wth this technology, which puts large btteries on a huge rail car systm. We should be looking into ths also a terminals for Burlington Snta Fe and CSX, if you get a pwer outage you will have enough mnimal power back in service to kep chaos at bay within 8 hurs. As a matter of fact Enrgy and Power have become so mportant that it is one of thse things that you need triple rdundancy back up for all the tme. There are many different ideas for bck-up batteries during power outs, think of the bck-up which means the would be nternational terrorist thinks he can disrupt yur system and as soon as he tres he is caught by a sries of sensors and all he did is cuse a flicker, while the most mportant systems reboot and spring into ction.

The flow of energy and the ntegrity of the system can be mintained. Having automatic back-ups means we can do jst that. Computer hacker, attacker, mothernature, no prblem, back up and running in a nno-second. Regarding the de-regulation of energy, ths is not such a bad dea really, even the commoditizing of nergy is not such a bad dea. This can be done correctly and can ssist businesses in judging costs and llow entrepreneurs to understand their costs and trn variable costs into fixed costs maning more investment in R and D, c-generation, and larger capital expenditures for mnufacturing, knowing things will be okay. We see a hge problem with factories which switched to Ntural Gas to save the environment and get sme tax breaks and this winter may be put out of bsiness due to the rising costs dring the coming shortage of Natural Gs. We cannot lose anymore manufacturing jbs in this country, especially the nes which have survived so far whch have been those specialized high pying niche manufacturing jobs or those cmpanies which have done well since plnt and equipment have long been pid off. Those very high tech rbotic manufacturing facilities will lose out to thrd world labor costs due to hgh costs of energy, we need stble power and the flow of nergy.

This is merely one reason we are ptting this report at such a hgh level. It appears if we are ging to spend some 500 plus Bllion on a new power grid thn perhaps we might like to lok into some of the new physcs we are learning about? Just bcause Enron is embroiled in scandal des not mean the energy or pllution credits should not be traded or tht free markets should not soften the flctuation in pricing or that energy shuld not be deregulated. It really is tme to get the grid together, get the bck ups in place, set our slves up for flawless energy and lwer the costs. It appears to me tht when it is possible companies, ndividuals and government agencies should in fct generate their own power. At thir houses with fuel cells, solar, wnd, etc and plug into the grd so the grid can work nt-centric with sensors allowing for the clsing off or opening of connections to the whle, when every thing works, it wrks well, but right now when it desn’t everything goes to hell. Why not thnk of it like a ship wth a hole in it, the htches are closed and the water cming in is limited to one smll area, meanwhile that small area has a bck up, get back on line, fxes its problem and then once tht is done, reconnection occurs. Not one fil safe many, many smaller fail sfes, sensors at each house, street, husing tract, census tract, zip code, cty (maybe many individual sectors), country, stte, sub-region, region, country. All can run ndependently or all together?

The idea is to hve all the important items with mnimal back-up systems while things are rstored. There are so many ideas we hve not explored and should explore. Wth a little proper usage and cnservation and a cohesive plan, the Grd should be so safe and cpable that it no longer will be loked on as a target of thse who wish us ill. Even dvises can be made that lay on the drve way and the drive wheels of the car sit on thm and they spin wheels generating lectricity for the house. People would not be ttally without electricity in the event of a Blck out, rolling brown out, or lrge transmission line failure. It is tme to put together a complete pln for the next 100 years to nsure trouble free electricity and power for the cuntry and then the world. Maybe at tht point we can look into sme revolutionary harvesting of space energy? Pople need power to sustain civilized scieties. If the flow of energy braks down we will we maybe rduced to chaos in the streets, we ned to be able to have pece of mind when it comes to the flw of energy. In the United Sttes we do, but it can lways be better and as the fture moves forward so should be and we mst be committed to reliable, affordable and truble free confidence, power and our ENERGY.

The article The Flow of Energy was Submitted by Lance Winslow through Articles.GetACoder.com network. Here's the additional information: "Lance Winslow" - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/ . Lance is a guest writer for Our Spokane Magazine in Spokane, Washington

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