A3StormDrain

A3StormDrain

To-Do

Please answer the following questions about the article: what did you find interesting? what did you find not find interesting? what did you not understand? what did you learn (if anything) reading the article?

After reading this there were a couple of different things that we found interesting. We all thought it was pretty cool that Boulder is in fact the first city to try out a smart grid. It's great that the city we are all living in is the first one to try what sounds like a great program to better energy consumption. Though it is cool, it seems like a really big undertaking. Of course it is easy to talk about, but implementing it is another story. The plan as a whole is a complete overhaul of the power infrastructure. Yes it is for the best, but to get there we are going to have to spend a lot of money and do a lot of work. The idea is great, but overall there are a lot of road blocks in the way. Also it's a really cool idea to have some sort of competition with rewards for saving power. Everyone loves competitions, so why have one where everyone, including the earth wins!

One thing that we didn't really understand is why power companies are funding this change. Morally, it is something they should be doing, but it doesn't seem profitable for them. The smart grid system as a whole seems great for the consumer. It tells them where they can make improvements and in the end, use less power. The less power they use though, the less the power company makes. Overall

We learned that one of the major challenges with smart grid technology and sustainable is having social cooperation with energy usage and grid design. There are many challenges that need to be overcome to make the smart grid work, but it's looking like our future.

Based on an exploration of the web, scientific articles, newspaper stories, ….. ? Write a Short Essay (about 1 page) about an interesting question / website related to one or more of the themes: Energy Sustainability, Smart Meters, Smart Grid

Briefly describe your own interests, experiences, actions, changes in your behavior (if any) related to “energy awareness”!

Overall, we are all poor college students living in Boulder so we are all interested in saving power to save money. All of us have experienced ridiculous energy bills during the winter, and we all would like that to change. The one thing most of us have done is to switch out conventional light bulbs with CFLs. They are sometimes a little pricey at the store, but in a whole house or apartments, they can really add up and end up saving you money. A few of us have wood burning stoves which we are going to utilize too. it's questionable if that is better or worse for the environment, but it will save us money because we can get wood for free. Another conclusion we came up with is that most of us are very aware of saving power. A few or our roommates will leave lights on, or crank up the heat in the winter, but we are all the ones that yell at them to turn their lights off, or turn the heat back down to a reasonable level. It would be nice if everyone was very energy aware, but not everyone is.