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On Is An Electricity Négociant in our Future?
"Could a similar range of blended electricity production and consumption service choices from electricity négociants be available to consumers in the future Smart Grid?"
I certainly hope so. The Conceptutal Plan for the Smart Grid as published by the NIST clearly provides for this eventuality. I hope that you will be an advocate for making this a reality sooner rather than later.
On Should We Spend More Time Educating Utilities Instead of Consumers?
I would suggest expanding your suggestion to include State Utility Regulators. They are at a minimum complicit in preventing consumers from realizing real benefits that they would find worthwhile. At worst, they are an impenetrable wall preventing true customer choice and control. The conceptual road-map for Smart Grid is well conceived. Unfortunately development is being controlled by those in the regulatory arena who want to keep their iron grip on the command and control of what consumers are allowed to do and what they pay. Electricity is the most generic of products. Electrons are electrons. They will flow on the transmission system according to the laws of physics. A vibrant competitive, retail electricity market would do more to advance the development and deployment of Smart Grid with residential and small commercial customers than any of the programs now being discussed. The reason is simply that the current programs are being developed to meet (only) the needs of the regulator and the utility, not the consumer. Only when that changes will consumers enthusiastically adopt Smart Grid technologies.
On How the Gleick Crisis Is Killing The Global Warming Cause
"So the moral of this story is that the science is never settled, and agendas should not be allowed to get in the way of science. Scientists, of all people, should know this."
If only this were a matter of science. It now is a matter of environmental dogma, politics (or power, if you wish), and money. Lots and lots of money.
Back in the 1970s the consensus was that the world was headed into another ice age. Then, almost overnight, there was a groundswell of support for the idea that the warming since the last ice age would continue unabated because humans burn fossil fuel, farm, and raise animals for food, putting an intolerable carbon load into the atmosphere. Dissenters aren't allowed.
On Grid Operators Should Pay for Energy R&D
You do realize that the same group of people will pay the bill in either event, don't you. That is either the money comes from tax revenue or it is added on to the electric bill and paid by the consumers/taxpayers. It could be distributed differently, I suppose, depending on how the tax is collected vs how the surcharge is applied. But in the end it is just a tube of toothpaste - it really doesn't matter were you squeeze.
On The Fossil Fuel-Economic Complex: Something's Going to Give
We would also be much closer to achieving our goals if there were not the irrational (defacto) prohibition on the use of nuclear energy in much of the country.