{"id":8031,"date":"2018-04-25T09:21:47","date_gmt":"2018-04-25T08:21:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8031"},"modified":"2018-04-25T09:22:10","modified_gmt":"2018-04-25T08:22:10","slug":"digital-energy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8031","title":{"rendered":"Digital energy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Blockchain-Process\"<\/a>In this blog we are going to have a quick look at digital energy.\u00a0 One of the biggest problems with rising energy prices is that that many in the West on low incomes struggle to afford them.\u00a0 Since 2008 energy prices have risen in all countries and despite the plunge in oil prices have yet to fall to any significant extent.\u00a0 There are a number of reasons for this, excess profit taking by energy companies, rising gas prices due to a fall in the amount of easily extractable gases, a switch to renewables etc.\u00a0 In the future its impossible to predict with any certainty where prices are going to go.\u00a0 There are two competing trends.\u00a0 Renewable costs are falling fast and are soon going to be cheaper than conventional fuels.\u00a0 Conversely there is need to electrify the whole economy.\u00a0 This requires not only a huge amount of new generating capacity but also massive grid reinforcement.\u00a0 This could raise prices.<\/p>\n

So the fuel poverty could get better or worse.\u00a0 Those of us who have been thinking about this have proposed a number of solutions covered in other blogs on this site.\u00a0 These include the idea of a carbon ration to fairly share out energy resources or direct subsidy through bills by those who can pay to those who cannot.\u00a0 This happens already to an extent in the UK.\u00a0 The last idea is to directly pay someone’s bills or part of it.\u00a0 This is made safer by digital energy.<\/p>\n

Most people have heard of bitcoin.\u00a0 Bitcoin relies on a technology called blockchain<\/a>.\u00a0 Despite this link attempting to explain it in a way that 5 year old’s can understand its still difficult to get your head around. \u00a0 But basically its a decentralised digital ledger that does not go through banks.\u00a0 Every-time you buy something your purchase is verified its added in a block of transactions to the end of the file (hence the name).\u00a0 You get this enormous file spread over masses of computers. \u00a0 Its supposed to be unhackable.\u00a0 The idea of digital energy is that it fits in very well with a decentralised grid.\u00a0 So if I want to sell my excess solar power to someone else I can do.\u00a0 I can also give it to someone.\u00a0 I also found a site that is allowing you to donate “energy” to those without it in the developing world also using blockchain.\u00a0 This is quite a big story as you can see here<\/a> and here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There a variety of issues to overcome before this becomes a practical reality.\u00a0 First the technology as we have covered before uses a lot of energy although one of the proponents has modified the technology to get around this (or so they claim).\u00a0 Second the receivers have to be on the internet and tech savvy.\u00a0 Last it has to be safe to use.\u00a0 Its not a total solution to the idea of fuel poverty since it relies on voluntarism but it has great potential to change how we and the grid manage our energy.<\/p>\n

Neil<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this blog we are going to have a quick look at digital energy.\u00a0 One of the biggest problems with rising energy prices is that that many in the West on low incomes struggle to afford them.\u00a0 Since 2008 energy … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lifestyle","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nDigital energy - The oil lamp - shining God's light on peak oil<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8031\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8031\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8031\",\"name\":\"Digital energy - 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