[GRLUG] OFF TOPIC Electric Car

[Collin Kidder]

Michael Mol wrote:
> The electric company could make a killing if they could authenticate
> power consumption.  Say, an X10-like-signal to let the building's
> power meter know to bill X kW/hr to such-and-such instead of the
> building's normal utility bill.  Then you could plug in anywhere with
> an updated power meter and a correctly-wired 220V outlet.
>
>
>   


This is actually a very good idea. It's also the sort of idea that a 
motivated individual could design and market with a little help. This 
could be done even without the power company. Think of Fonero or other 
wifi hotspots. You pay them for access, they pay the upstream provider. 
This same scheme can work for power. You, the inventor, start up a 
company which provides a hardware device that people install somewhere. 
People sign up for your service and provide their account info. They can 
then go anywhere one of your devices happen to be and they pay through 
your service. At the end of the month your service keeps a cut and sends 
a check to the people who provided power. This works so long as you 
charge enough for your company plus the end user of the device to take a 
cut and still pay the power co.