This little cranial wander around the digital neighborhood started when I shared the little tidbit about the FOX crew parent NewsCorp announcing they were starting a new channel. In what I think is no accident, the name will be My Network TV which I believe is a further capitalization on the "My" brand acquired by Fox two summers ago.

I made a rather broad sweep of a statement to the effect that Tom and Rupert had an opportunity to do what the folks at CNN/Time/Warner couldn't do when they joined AOL at the hip. We all know Ted Turner and the other Time Warner shareholders took it in another portion of the lower anatomy, not the hip.

As I've contemplated how to make my point, in order to explain why I think this is important, I decided to make my case by explaining the many ways the power of the packet has engrained itself into nearly every facet of our day-to-day life.

What happened as I gathered my thoughts and reviewed my material, and decided how to do justice to the TRANSFORMATIONAL opportunity MySpace and My Network might be, I decided to break this conversation into component parts and play with it one step at a time.

For starters it was fascinating for me to learn not long ago that the very same communication protocols that allow Client / Server networks to run in our closed Intranets of the workplace, are exactly the same communication protocols that make the Internet work. TCP/IP and Ethernet and packets are the defacto world wide standard for networked data. Nearly universal, I suppose we can still count the analog landlines but their days are limited.

OK, leap to the very top of the societal infrastructure - Electrical Power - makes the world go around (I know it's steam but that's a different Blog for a different day).

Power. Electrical power and fossil fuel are the focus of today.

First let me say we have to factor in Nuclear power generation when discussing the National Electrical Grid, but for today lets just leave it with today's modern automation control systems are quickly being migrated to Ethernet driven IT systems. Allen Bradley and ladder logic are still the computerized control industry standard (there are other automation control vendors, but Allen Bradley represents the top of the heap).

So the most sophisticated automation systems are moving to Ethernet based, distributed networked automation control systems. And those localized power plants are being connected to each other and to the home office via Web based communication technologies.

Do you remember the great Midwest power failure of a couple years ago? It took down most of the East Coast and Midwest? The official report blamed it partially on poor tree maintenance and the resultant shorting out of power lines. A secondary finding of the investigation was poor communication and antiquated automation systems and crises alarm management (read that as computerized) tools were sadly outdated and were an impediment to effectively dealing with the early stages of the problem. This then allowed the snowball of alarms to turn into an avalanche, and the system crashed several hours after the initial glitch from a small corner of the Grid. If you want to learn more about the American National Electric grid modernization project, you can research on your own starting here: http://www.gridwise.org/

But that's the electric power supply. Lets look at Natural Gas.

In Russia for example (same as the US), natural gas moves thru a vast network of pipes pumps and of course the whole assemblage is automated. Distinct from the American model, which is made up of multitude of individual operators all working separately but together, each trying to compete with other players and earn profit, the Russian model is more of a central single entity running the entire program.

Transneft Oil Pipeline Company. 30,000 miles of pipe, 350 pumping stations, 850 holding tanks, 35 refineries, a PLC / SCADA / ladder logic automation systems with 600,000 individual tags, 2500 PLC's, 500 networked PC's, 20 satellite links, microwave and landline communications, all riding on TCP/IP protocols, and 1500 Operator Work Stations with a screen refresh response time of 3 to 5 seconds. Read that as pretty damn close to real time, for a monstrously huge nationwide automation system.

Talk about a hacker's paradise. In this country we spend quite a bit of time talking about credit card theft and various other business oriented computer crimes. But a national energy system?

Security matters.

Flash back to the dark years of the Cold War and the East / West industrial espionage game. Read this as we capitalistic profit driven Western economic systems invested R & D funds to develop new products, and our enemies spent a lot of time trying to steal the technology.

For a small sample that illustrates the threat, try this material http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4394002 illustrating how the CIA "helped the Soviets with their shopping" from Thomas C. Reed, At the Abyss: an Insider's History of the Cold War (Ballantine Books, New York, 2004).

Fast forward to the modern era. Remember California had a better idea regarding deregulating the electric wholesale market? Remember Enron? The result was a disaster of failed State regulation that nearly took down the California electrical power industry, the ramifications still being worked out to this day.

Back to the conversation of Gridwise. Demand Response is the new buzzword in the world of managing the electrical grid. What it boils down to is the Utility of choice will have the option / ability to selectively shut down air-conditioning electric to banks of millions of homes with the flip of a central switch. In the event of a peak load scenario, in the heart of the cooling season the utility will by mandate be able to communicate with the thermostats in your home roll up the temperature set points to reduce the MACRO electrical demand on the grid, and in the case of emergency turn off your air conditioner all together. Pilot programs have been conducted with various utilities in various parts of the country. The difference is this will become mandatory participation by Law in California in the very near future, likely also in other parts of the country.

What does this have to do with the Web? TCP/IP protocols will be used to communicate with smart thermostats and smart meters and via central control of the Electrical Utility. In the event of a peak load grid destabilizing crises, the utility will take control of the air conditioning controls of your home, possibly even your business. Can you imagine old folks homes with health compromised senior citizens forced to go without air conditioning? How about those of you who are in your home during the day?

What is your take on Web enabled central control of your home, in the hands of a utility?

This is our future, like it or not.