Responding to sources

Martin, Mike. (2010, July/August). The Great Green Grid. 21, 23-29.

http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.hacc.edu/pqrl/docview/577663735/13D1E28640474BD99C8/6?accountid=11302

“The Great Green Grid” article says about how the grid we have now just moves electricity in one direction and the smart grid. If installed, would allow electronics to communicate with each other and help manage customers’ energy costs and usage. This article also speaks about who is going to pay for the smart grid and how politics are likely to slow efforts for finding consumers to pay for the new grid ahead of time. The smart grid requires monitoring technology in every home to see how families are using more then what they need for electricity. Pilot programs are happening from small to big picture already and say how different states are already installing smart grids or even trying to do better than the smart grid and make up their own way of renewable energy electricity.

The passage that interests me is about privacy concerns that go with the smart grid and if the smart grid is installed. Then there will be monitoring of homes and families will not have much privacy and this passage surprises me because I did not know the smart grid needed to have monitoring technology in homes in order to make a difference with cost and security. My question about the information that might be worth investigating is how a pilot project have anything to do with the smart grid. This question is important to me because it would help me make more sense about the smart grid and help me understand what pilot projects means.

Greenfield, Dave. (2009, November 9). Is the smart grid a dumb idea. 26, S10-S11, S14-S16, S18-S20

http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.hacc.edu/pqrl/docview/198553536/13D1E83658E4AB5C7E2/35?accountid=11302

This source agrees with what my first source says about the smart grid and how it will help improve homes and companies. I see this source agreeing with my first source from how my second source says about blackouts occurring more and more every year. Also my second source agrees with how the smart grid could improve security, reliability, and have a green footprint to help the world also. The second source speaks about how the smart grid is going to get funded and agrees with that other states are already developing the smart grid.

Evaluating Sources

http://web.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.hacc.edu/ehost/detail?vid=3&sid=eca3627d-ba4f-47ce-8479-c8bf196bf7cf%40sessionmgr11&hid=1&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=f5h&AN=83413877

The article found from the library’s website is called, “Storm surge switches the grid to “off” and for currency the date of the article is January 12, 2012 that was when the information was published. The information has not be revised or updated and the older sources work as well and yes, the links are functional. The next part for relevance is that the information does relate to my topic but does not answer my question and the intended audience is for anyone who is interested in this topic. The information is not too elementary but needs to be advanced some more to know more about the information and yes, I did look at a variety of sources (3 articles) before determining this one I was going to use that was closest to my topic. I would be more comfortable citing this source in my research paper if it was closer to the date of when my topic about “U.S. Energy Grid” went on.

 Authority is that the article is by Russell, Pam Radtke and the source is ENR: Engineering News-Record and I am not sure about the author’s credentials or organizational affiliations but the author is qualified to write on the topic. There is no contact information and the URL does not reveal anything about the author or source. For accuracy, the information comes from ENR: Engineering News-Record and the information are supported by evidence. The information has not been reviewed or refereed and yes, I can verify any of the information in the other source. The language or tone does seem unbiased but does have emotion like sadness and anger of what happened and there is no spelling, grammar or typographical errors in this information. For purpose the purpose of the information is to inform about what the storm called, “Sandy” caused to the energy grid and the author makes his intentions clear. The information is both fact and opinion and the point of view appears objective, there are political and cultural biases.

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-10-11/opinions/35499513_1_wind-tax-credit-wind-turbines-megawatts-of-wind-generation

The article found form Google is called, “Why the U.S. needs a networked energy grid” and for currency the date the information was published is October 11, 2012. The information has not been revised or updated and the older sources work for this topic and there are no links for this topic. For relevance the information does relate to my topic and the intended audience is for people who know about the networked energy grid, the information is advanced for my needs and I have looked at 2 sources before determining this is the one I was going to use. I would not be comfortable citing this source in my research paper because it would need to be less advanced for my paper. For authority, the topic is by C. Boyden Gray and I am not sure about the author’s credentials or organizational affiliations, the author is qualified to write on this topic.
There is no contact information and the URL does not reveal anything about the author or source. As for accuracy, the topic does not say where the information comes from and the information is not supported by evidence. The information has been reviewed and I can verify the information from personal knowledge, the language or tone seem unbiased and free of emotion and there is no spelling, grammar or typographical errors. For purpose, the information’s purpose was to inform about the wind-production tax credit and the kilowatt-hours and the author does make his intention and purpose clear. The information is fact, the point of view appears objective and there are political and ideological biases.

The credibility of these two sources is different from each other based on my analysis the first source is credible because it is more related to my topic then the second source. The first source is about how the huge storm, Sandy which destroyed a great part of the energy grid and brought light to changing the way the energy grid. Is for the future if another disaster happens and my topic is about how the transformers malfunctioned and a blackout happened everywhere because of the grid system being old so they are planning on making a smart gird to be able to be strong. The second source is about pricing that is being used for something other than for fixing the grid and wanting more “feel-good” energy policy like wind turbines. Which is close but not what I am looking for credible for my topic since my does say about a smart grid, it does not say a lot about money wise and I am more interested about how they plan on putting the new grid in, I am not looking for how much money it will take to make this smart grid happen.

Sources On the Energy Grid

For my first source, it talks about how the US energy grid is going to try to be better on the environmental footprint and avoid liquefied natural gas and how long it might take to change the old with the new. The reason why it is taking so long to happen is because investors would much rather build plants that makes the cost go up for our nation and is hard on the environmental footprint. For having a better footprint on Earth, we would need to have the investors invest in projects like building large wind farms for clean energy and have clean coal and nuclear plants to help the land. Trying to get these resources is a problem since they are often remotely located and will need to bring to urban markets but expectations are growing for this new energy grid.

My second source talks about this smart grid might not be real and the difference between transmission and distribution. Even though the U.S. Department of Energy attended a meeting about the grid all they came up with was a term to call it which is called, “smart grid”. Since the smart grid is not getting built anytime soon, this means higher electric prices and more risk in result of a grid failure. It is not clear if the technical view is going to make it reality or is it going to be a political view where money will build the smart grid.

I chose these two sources because they talk about the US energy grid and how it is going to affect the world and the future of electricity. I find interesting about the first source is that it talked about the environmental footprint the grid will have on Earth because I feel like the footprint is a big thing. For keeping this world to keep going and if we do not do anything now we will all pay for it sooner or later. The second source I found interesting because it talked about how the smart grid might not be real since people cannot decide if it is going to make a change in the world or not and they rather just stick to how things are going now.

My grasp on the topic so far is that this grid is going to change the world if it happens and when it does it will help the Earth and help the people. I understand the issue pretty good since I am studying to be an electrician and will need to know about the power grids and how they work so if they do fail I can fix them. A additional question I have about my topic is that how are they going to make this smart grid, like where are they going to put it and what materials is it going to be made out of. I hope to learn next about my topic is how it will work on being better than the old energy grid.

Citing
Krapels, Edward; Conant, Stephen. (2008, November). US grid: it’s our way or the highway. 16. 74, 76-77.
Kennedy, Maize. (2007, June). Features. .Transmission: Smart grid still just a vision thing. 151. 68