Alphabet's Nest Wants to Build a 'Citizen-Fueled' Power Plant (bloomberg.com) 157
Mark Chediak, reporting for Bloomberg:Alphabet Inc's Nest Labs is looking to enlist enough customers in California to free up as much power as a small natural gas-fired plant produces, helping alleviate potential energy shortages in the region following a massive gas leak that has restricted supplies. Nest, which supplies digital, wireless thermostats, is partnering with Edison International's Southern California Edison utility to get households enrolled in a state-established energy conservation program. The company wants to attract 50,000 customers through next summer that could shrink their total demand by as much as 50 megawatts when needed, Ben Bixby, Nest's director of energy businesses at Nest, said by phone. "We are building a citizen-fueled clean power plant," he said.
Soylent Green (Score:5, Funny)
is power!
Word for word my first thought (Score:2)
Filter error: You can type more than that for your comment.
But it was not necessary.
Better idea... (Score:4, Insightful)
...Have Alphabet Inc (what a stupid name) turn off the AC at the headquarters in the summer and turn off the heat in the winter. Just circulate the outside air.
Same for all the other groups who want average consumers to make their lives uncomfortable in the name of...what the fuck ever.
Re: Better idea... (Score:2)
Re:Better idea... (Score:4, Informative)
Just circulate the outside air.
That would be called an economizer in HVAC speak. Pretty much every new commercial building has one and they are often retrofitted as part of maintenance and repair to existing buildings. Also those who choose to give up A/C control are paid for it. Such programs are widespread across the country. Good thing that Nest is finally using it's google $Billions and existing user base to implement it though.
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yes but how does that help DoNoEvil install a device in homes that talks to their servers and have govt subsidize it?
Effecient (Score:3, Funny)
If you burn the citizens for fuels you make more power, and need less in the future. It's a win-win
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If you burn the citizens for fuels you make more power, and need less in the future. It's a win-win
Or perhaps the people will be kept alive and used as a sort of "battery" providing the power to the plant. I can see no flaws in that plan.
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That does explain the deja-vu I keep getting all the tim -- did you see that cat?
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However the body is nearly 50% carbon. So half of your weight will go towards carbon pollution.
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> the body is nearly 50% carbon
Check your math on that one.
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Well, it's only about 18% carbon.
But another fun fact: When you "lose weight" (not the short-term weight loss you can get when losing water, but the long-term weight loss of losing body fat) then THAT pounds of weight actually add to CO2 pollution.
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Uh, no you're not (Score:5, Insightful)
"We are building a citizen-fueled clean power plant,"
Uh, no you're not. You are running an energy saving campaign. You are not creating anything new power here.
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"We are building a citizen-fueled clean power plant,"
Uh, no you're not. You are running an energy saving campaign. You are not creating anything new power here.
Just like rationing food is the same as farming.
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Just like rationing food is the same as farming.
Analogy of the day award.
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Yeah, isn't it weird that this industry is so unique in that its supply curve bends backward in places?
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"We are building a citizen-fueled clean power plant,"
Uh, no you're not. You are running an energy saving campaign. You are not creating anything new power here.
I agree, but under some current regulatory models, such shenanigans are treated similarly as an actual power plant. To the grid, adding 50MW of supply is the same as subtracting 50MW of demand (in most cases). There are several things about this that greatly concern me, especially the part about a tech company entering the energy market and extracting large amounts of money while providing very little benefit.
Despite the reforms after Enron, the energy market is not regulated very well, regulation varie
Crematoriums (Score:2)
You are not creating anything new power here.
Indeed you are not. Citizens make very bad fuel which is why crematoriums need to use gas.
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They actually want to kick appliances off. (Score:5, Insightful)
They actually want to kick appliances off. When the load is high, your blender quits working, basically.
They actually mean "the equivalent of adding a gas-fired power plant by subtracting users who can damn well wait for their smoothies.
Hopefully no one is stupid enough to buy a Nest dialysis machine...
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I volunteered for a similar program in Nebraska. When demand is highest my AC doesn't run, or rather runs less.
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I once lived in Iowa when I lived in the US, and my then-spouse signed us up for one of those programs without consulting me first. I just came home one day and the AC was no longer operating when it was hottest. Utterly, utterly miserable, and I had to wait weeks to get the thing disconnected. Why would anyone willingly choose to have one of those things in their home?
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Some people properly insulate their house, ... and also drive a Prius.
That driving a Prius is pretty effortless isn't a bad thing, though some people seem to take a dislike to people who Do Something like driving a Prius, I'm not sure why.
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some people seem to take a dislike to people who Do Something like driving a Prius, I'm not sure why.
Usually, Do Something is limited to driving a Prius (and maybe ordering free trade lates) but it always comes with self-righteousness set to 11.
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Some people properly insulate their house, ... and also drive a Prius.
That driving a Prius is pretty effortless isn't a bad thing, though some people seem to take a dislike to people who Do Something like driving a Prius, I'm not sure why.
Usually because you find them trying to hyper mile in the left hand lane of the interstate/highway going about 30 under the speed limit while they watch their MPG or L/100km gauge instead of the road.
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No, I'm pretty sure it must be something else. I live in the land of the Prius and haven't seen any hypermiling in the left lane at 40mph.
It must be something else, maybe related to whatever causes people to engage in hyperbole.
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No, I'm pretty sure it must be something else. I live in the land of the Prius and haven't seen any hypermiling in the left lane at 40mph.
It must be something else, maybe related to whatever causes people to engage in hyperbole.
So what, you think hundreds of thousands of people hate prius drivers for no apparent reason? Its like an "OMG that guy can afford a hybrid and I can't" jealousy? I don't live in the land of the prius but I agree with the Colorado AC who also replied to you. It's (almost) always a pick-up truck or a prius that is blocking traffic in the left hand lane.
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MONEY. They pay you to do this.
Also, connecting your thermostat is not the smartest decision. But laundry and dishwasher both make a lot of sense to do it.
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The program was to connect it to the thermostat.
Furthermore, I'm not sure how your average clothes or dish washer would take to having the power just randomly going off on it.
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It's real simple why you might want a load controller shutting off your A/C at times, the electric company is willing to sell you power for a substantial discount.
You don't have to be miserable, you just have to plan.
Pre-cool your house, don't run the electric dryer between noon and 9pm, ...
Tesla/SolarCity will likely eventually announce an integrated system that uses a battery pack plus load controller to minimize your peak demand and allow you to save substantially on your power bill.
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smart thermostats and other timers are the way, not surrendering control. then if you do happen to be home at unexpected time you can run things.
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Smart thermostats just regulate your home's temperature without any ability to reduce peak demand. They can reduce your total consumption but not peak demand. Timers also don't reduce peak demand, unless you simply set them to not run during peak hours.
Imagine a city with 100,000 A/C units. They run an average of 25% of the time during peak use times. If more than 25% of them are on at one particular time then they increase peak demand. By understanding demand needs of all the homes an intelligent algo
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wrong, if enough people's smart themostats have the AC off during peak demand time since they're not home anyway, then peak demand is reduced.
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If you're willing to lose your AC during the hottest part of the day, then you might as well not have AC at all. So there's no reason to get such a device, you might as well just sell your AC.
"Pre-cooling" a house does not work. In the hottest part of the day it was enough of a challenge for the AC to just keep up.
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Pre-cooling a house absolutely does work because you aren't pre-cooling it "during the hottest part of the day", you are cooling it during the non-peak demand periods which are non-peak precisely because they are the cooler parts of the day/night. You specifically run your A/C less during the hottest times of the day.
You don't "lose your A/C during the hottest part of the day either", you completely misunderstand, you just try to use it less during the hottest part of the day.
A smart thermostat is able to
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I don't "misunderstand" anything, that is exactly what the device did. It didn't precool anything, it didn't ramp anything down, it just randomly shut off when too many people had their AC on (aka, when it was hottest). And in Iowa in July, even if you did know when it was about to go off and tried to "precool" (which I assure you, does not work well), you'd be burning up long before the AC kicks back in.
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Right. I should have redone my entire house in order to get a device to shut my AC off during the hottest point in the day. Got it.
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I have to agree with you on this one having done the same experiment in the 90's myself. AC savor switches are aggressively stupid. Guess when all the summer time "peak times" are, hint its when everyone spins up the 2500W HVAC systems.
If your AC was installed by a reputable professions who correctly sized the unit and it has a decent SER rating 14+ than turning it off at peak time is a terrible idea. These things are designed to cycle, to short a cycle the wear prematurely to long a cycle (well that won
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All the load controllers I'm familiar prevent short cycling your A/C unit.
I'm sure the units you used in the 90's were stupid, it's now 20+ years later and $5 microcontrollers are quite smart.
If you believe you won't be comfortable because your A/C turns on 10 minutes later than it would have turned on if your existing dumb thermostat was installed then you are mistaken. But I'm all in favor of letting you continue to have your dumb thermostat turn your A/C on and off whenever you want and for your to pay
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Because you usually don't connect an AC or any other life important equipment to it but fridges, washing mashines dryers etc.
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Not a clue. My power could have been free for all I cared, I still would have had it removed. I would have rathered live in an air-conditioned tent than a house with no AC during the hottest part of the day.
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So you wouldn't be willing to say, go to the store or the library for a few hours on the hottest days of the year, for $1000 or so? Or get a fan and open your windows? Or use a window air conditioner?
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The devices do not deprive you of A/C during the hottest part of the day or indeed during any part of the day.
They merely reduce peak demand by leveling usage.
BUGS! (Score:2)
And when something goes wrong, or the system is compromised:
- Heater goes on and stays on, on a sweltering hot day
- Lights start communicating in morse code
- Freezer decides your food is too cold
- Garage door opens, and stays open on a very cold day
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Yeah go fuck yourself alphabet. Like I'm going to secede control over my life to some douche-bag for "the greater good." How about I install solar panels and a nice battery and you and the power company can both go fuck yourselves.
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They actually want to kick appliances off. When the load is high, your blender quits working, basically.
They actually mean "the equivalent of adding a gas-fired power plant by subtracting users who can damn well wait for their smoothies.
Hopefully no one is stupid enough to buy a Nest dialysis machine...
These kinds of programs are fairly common, although usually they make you use a special thermostat which can be triggered via radio. When it gets the message on high demand days, it turns your AC off for an hour. I used to do the local program, and usually it meant that 3 or 4 times a year the temperature in the house would go up 5 degrees or so. I thought it was a reasonable way to avoid brownouts or building another gas plant, but I got an ecobee which they don't yet support. If they do, I'll sign back up
Slashdot = Fair & Balanced. . . (Score:2, Offtopic)
Coming home to a cooled house is actually a plus for both the consumer and the grid, but don't let that get in the way of your FOX like "'bama's gonna take our guns!" like interpretation.
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It's simply a case of making appliances like fridges and freezers that are on all the right schedule their operation to avoid peak times.
Dial your freezer down an extra 1C. Have a smart plug that switches it off for up to 10 minutes on command, max once per hour. The food won't be affected.
We have similar things in the UK, but for cheap energy over night. Water heater is controlled by the energy company, only runs at night and stores the hot water in a tank for use during the day.
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Dial your freezer down an extra 1C. Have a smart plug that switches it off for up to 10 minutes on command, max once per hour. The food won't be affected.
In one corner we have the modern fridge with variable speed compressor and in the other a "smart plug".... My money is on the "smart plug" because it has the word smart in it.
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Cloud spoils the dream (Score:2)
I'm fine with a smart home. I'm old enough to remember the DAK Catalog and more-or-less drooling over the advanced dreams that the 80s could sell me. But I'm not fine any of this data leaving my property line, or with intelligence or non-aggregated usage telemetry resulting in internal details going over the wire for evaluation. Even if Alphabet "Did No Evil" (which it probably does), transmission to control on the outside opens me up for spying and makes me vulnerable to hack.
If a company wants to provide
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When they came for the smoothies, I did not speak up.
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Hopefully no one is stupid enough to buy a Nest dialysis machine...
Why?
It's one of those things, like an iron lung, that you don't want being turned off on you via grid management.
Is that a hispter name (Score:2)
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No they are generally not fat enough. Only the doughy whites have decades of excess calories stored.
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What is mine is mine, what is yours is . . . (Score:2)
Less Power For You (Score:1)
Data Centers need reliable power and cooling. You, not so much.
Too much demand? no A/C for you.
Too much demand? No heat for you.
Too much demand? No TV/PS3 for you?
Basically, this is to teach people that industry's demands are first, next the state, and if there is any power remaining, you.
Get used to doing more with a whole lot less.
Want to use the PS4, better get on the bicycle generator.
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Doing more with less is how technology works; and technology comes with discovery, not mandate.
Natural gas burned in power plants and transmitted as electricity produces much more light out of LED lamps than natural gas piped to gas lamps. They couldn't just up and switch to electricity and LED lamps 50 years before Edison and Westinghouse, even if the Government told them they had a week to figure out how to produce more ten times light with half as much gas.
(The chief effect of all this is less labo
lol, greenwashing (Score:1)
There's nothing more laughable than a high tech ad broker going GREEN.
You know what takes up a ridiculous amount of energy? 1) The technological infrastructure required to build and maintain Google's services and the infrastructure it relies on; 2) The mindless consumerism from which Google gets 95% of its profits, i.e. adverts.
So, go fuck yourselves, you vapid, hypocritical cunts. You want to do something about unsustainable consumption? Shut down, and use your warchest to promote limited a less materially
logical fallacy (Score:3)
OR
Should someone build a solar/wind/wave/whatever power plant and then 50 million people can do whatever the hell they want. Which one is easier and more reasonable to implement?
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I'd say that reducing peak demand is less expensive than building a solar power plant just as replacing an 80W light bulb with a 6W light bulb is cheaper than adding 74W of capacity to a power plant.
It really is just math, nothing to do with hipsters or eco logic.
I'm sure your hyperbolic "drastically change how they live" assertions can be safely ignored as untrue.
Great idea (Score:2)
They should call the venture Soylent Power.
One could then say in a certain sense that it's green power because it's "powered by people!"
Oh wait, that isn't what you meant?
'Citizen fuelled' != 'saving energy' (Score:3)
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I don't know why but anymore I have a hard time reading BS and when I read TFS I completely missed that they were saving power using thermostats and assumed that they were working on a sewage to energy plant and forgot to mention it in TFS.
As the only way you are going to get a citizen-fuelled power plant is if people give a shit.
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In other countries such concepts are called virtual power plant.
And yes, from the perspect of the grid operators: it is a power plant
You might disagree, but neither does legislation nor actually handling of grids, power production or power consumption here in germany.
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Reducing peak demand doesn't mean using less electricity and reducing peak demand by 50MW can in fact eliminate the need for 50MW of generating capacity.
If you have a cafeteria that seats 100 and there are 200 employees who want to eat their lunch for 30 minutes at the cafeteria simply have half go at 11:45 and half at 12:15. It really isn't that big of a deal and it does save the cost of building a bigger cafeteria. If it makes you angry to eat at 11:45 instead of 12:15 then simply get someone to swap wi
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And so it begins (Score:1)
What starts out "voluntary" quickly becomes mandatory. Expect scheduled brownouts when the Great Computer gets hungry. Let's see if any resistance will develop. Citizen fueled... doubleplusungood
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Expect scheduled brownouts when the Great Computer gets hungry
Well, that *is* interesting. Will Alphabet* be reducing the capacity of its services in response to high grid utilization?
A Modest Proposal (Score:2)
'Citizen-Fueled' (Score:2)
Figures (Score:2)
Taking Credit for Saving, Not Generating Energy (Score:3)
Solar City (Score:2)
I'd be more interested with what a company like Solar City can do on this front.
I'm wondering if you could have some sort of distributed mesh-network power utility where each node has battery storage and solar panels, and sets its own input and output prices, with more traditional means of generation filling in the gaps.
Ye olde 'negawatts' concept (Score:3)
California has given up on bringing new power generation online, so it turns to the popular Seventies idea of paying people to conserve more. Conservation is fine is a short-term solution to shortage - of anything - but in the long run there is no substitute for generating more power by the cleanest feasible means. If CA continues to be short of water it will have to start desalinating, and just by itself that will require new capacity. Arizona can't supply all of California's power needs.
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"Almost half of all capacity added in 2013 [across the US] was located in California." "Nearly 60% of the natural gas capacity [across the US] added in 2013 was located in California." http://www.eia.gov/todayinener... [eia.gov]
California's total electrical generation capacity has gone from 55,344 MW in 2001, to 79,359 MW in 2015. That's an average increase of 1,644 MW of new capacity going online each and every year.
http://energyalmanac.ca.gov/el... [ca.gov]
E
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Great rebuttle to my response [slashdot.org] there...
Finally! (Score:2)
Nothing new - PG&E was doing this 33 years ago (Score:2)
This is nothing new.
Save power. Use less of it.
Genius!
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Reducing peak loads isn't at all the same as using less power.
This is also about reducing aggregate peak demand which is different than just reducing your home's peak demand. It's quite possible for non-cooperative homes to all individually reduce peak demand while in the aggregate increasing peak demand.
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Yes, you can read TFA with your adblocker on (Score:2)
It's goddamn brain-dead Bloomburg paywalling. As soon as you see the text in your browser, hit Escape. You can then read the article without disabling your adblocker.
We've come so far. (Score:2)
Alphabet, 2016: Get in the Oven
Citizen fueled? (Score:2)
Why does the Matrix come to mind?
Basically "austerity measures" under another label (Score:2)
That's what this is.
"Just don't use as much."
Now, sure, that works...up to a point.
In California, the problem is that deregulation has TOTALLY fucked up the power industry. Where it's more lucrative to "sell" power out of state, claim insufficient capacity, then import power (which isn't so heavily price-fixed) and mark it up horrendously and at just barely-there availability.
Good title (Score:2)
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They stole that from the last ship
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I'll bet that dirty hippies burn pretty well what with all that patchouli oil.
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"We are building a citizen-fueled clean power plant,"
A new twist on "Soylent Green?" A conspiracy against cemetery plots? Trumps "Final Solution" to the Immigration problem?
Or maybe it's just a way to use the results of a bean-heavy diet, given that the goal is to get "as much power as a small natural gas-fired plant produces" - get enough, umm, natural gas from citizens, and you've solved your problem!
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The Immigrants aren't citizens yet, but using citizens as fuel will create openings for the immigrants to fill.
Google Fuel is People!
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Wow, you must be a utility customer in austin. You forgot the community benefit charge, resource recovery fee, code compliance fee, drainage fee, and street sweeping fee. Oh, and taxes on all that. The future is now.
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The poors can get power from bicycle power or beg for power for services.
Nah, they'll simply commit crimes for money to pay for power, steal power directly with unauthorized line taps, and build generators that burn anything (wood, plastic, diesel, old tires, cooking oil, coal, anything available and burnable, basically) and pump out tons of particulates, GHGs, and other pollutants and toxins and thus make the entire situation worse all around.
People will not go without energy and if you try to stop them they'll simply go around, over, or through you to get/make what they feel t