White House announces $13B to modernize the US power grid | Hacker News Reader

White House announces $13B to modernize the US power grid

electrek.co

91 pointsmfiguiere35 comments

As others are pointing out the fact that $13B seems quite low, there’s more information here:

https://www.energy.gov/gdo/building-better-grid-webinar

Paging thru the slide deck, it seems that the focus will be on renewables and storage (solar, wind, and battery). The small amount of “free” money is in the form of grants. Competitive businesses do seek these funds. To receive the grant, they have to win it, and that includes writing a plan (for a business they already want to conduct) into a grant application. That plan must heed the government’s regulations and objectives – the person writing the application knows it.

The money is small for the total cost of the project, but it’s a carrot to direct already-effective builders towards building the way that the government wants them to build. The stick exists, too. For example, some EPA regulations will fine or block new builds (and even just upgrades or maintenances) that do not follow the latest regulations.

This is promising. I suppose these funds will also help address the vulnerability of the US power grid to cyberattacks, due to its heavy reliance on a small set of critical nodes.

The following article from early 2022 gives a thorough yet concise overview of the subject: https://semiengineering.com/power-grids-under-attack/

Here's hoping they don't blow it on ev chargers for apartments. Inflating apartment building valuation with this would be a fucking horrible outcome

Is this part of the $300+ billion that John Podesta is in charge of distributing?

Podesta oversees the disbursement of $370 billion in clean energy tax credits and incentives authorized by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022

--wikipedia

$13B buys what, a few hundred miles of transmission lines?

Appreciate everyone contributing to the discussion by regurgitating random unrelated political talking points.

So like 2% of the US military budget?

Total spending $9T this year, so this $13B is about 12.6 hours of spending. Wow, we spent half a day modernizing the power grid. (Pats self on back)

main page links says there are 20 comments here

but i see only 6

why?

Click your profile (your username) link.

> showdead: yes

> update

I definitely recommend reading the dead postings. Sometimes they're nuts. But often they're just speaking truths that the dominant moderators don't want you to hear.

For instance, I'm routinely voted down for speaking of the needs of the artists and writers who are damaged by piracy. The downvoters seem to hate the mention that piracy corrodes the free market and denies rewards to the artists. The downvoters like to imagine that they're keeping the discussion free from Holocaust deniers but stomping on political ideas they don't like is a big part of it.

Is there evidence that "piracy corrodes the free market"?

my comment was made dead for backing up the claim that US funding to the Ukrainian government pays for Ukrainian government salaries. Hardly conspiriatorial and completely what you'd expect the money to be doing if you are trying to help a country not collapse. Nonetheless, I get downvoted and flagged because I didn't google it for people. Maybe they think that all the money sent goes to buying Eee PC's so the children of Ukraine can learn to read and write good.

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