A few months ago, on http://www.ObamaCTO.org, I saw this question:
Barack Obama is going to appoint the nation's first CTO. What are the top priorities?
One of it's answers:
Build a nation-wide smart grid
Embed intelligence throughout a nation-wide electrical grid, on both sides of the meter to enhance the efficiency of distribution and use. This will (A) accelerate the penetration of sources like solar & wind that
are diurnal or intermittent; (B) take advantage of smart meters and distributed storage as plug-in cars become available; (C) permit power to be wheeled from where resources are rich to where electricity is needed; (D) provide tens of thousands of jobs and train workers to replace the baby boomers who will retire from utilities over the next 5-10 years. Start with the government-owned Bonneville Power Administration in the Northwest, learn what works, and extend the network across the country.
Neato.
On another note, whurley is calling for President Obama to build out a national computing cloud specifically for higher education. Of course, this will benefit open source peeps (beyond students). Maybe this is ala Eucalyptus? Hi, Rich!
Looks like cloud computing is going down the thought path of the traditional computing model, so the analysts are right on. At some point in time, someone might even suggest a government built and regulated cloud computing model. We live in interesting times.
