英语听力：自然百科 智能电网（下）（在线收听）

In Part I of the Electric InterGrid , we saw how consumers and utility companies could both save money and liberate much less carbon into the atmosphere, if our power network became intelligent and self-aware. 

But for this idea to work, every team that makes electricity and most things that use it must interact with one another. Like the Internet, devices on the InterGrid must be "Plug-and- Play", so that any device can hear or speak to any other. And like the Internet, the InterGrid will grow a little with each clever new gadget. 

Now, the downside of the power grid that works just like a web is that it's exposed to hacker attacks, not only by pranksters, but also from organized and well-funded terrorists. Soon, every smart meter in every home and business will be something akin to computer virus protection. 

The InterGrid must also defend against assaults from Planet Earth itself. Let’s say one day maybe 10 years from now, a monster hurricane comes ashore, knocking out power. The intelligent InterGrid instantly begins matching energy sources to critical needs, places like hospitals and fire stations must be back online first. 

But this InterGrid isn’t depending only on utility power from power plants far away. After all, lines may be down over a large area. It’s also intelligently hunting for a local energy sources: the solar panels on your neighbor's roof, the plug-in hybrid car in your drive lane, the fuel cells at your daughter’s school – every little bit helps. 

Smartly switching power to vital local services like a phone system or a police station is called "Islanding". And it can keep whole communities afloat in times of trouble. To keep power flowing, operators must know what the grid is doing, at every level from local streets to international transmission lines, to keep small failures from cascading out of control. This is a prototype for a system to do just that. It’s called VERDE – Visual Energy Resources Dynamically on Earth. It overlays different kinds of real-time information on Google Earth, cleaning weather data, showing which specific power lines are out, and who owns what wires, and how much of the population is affected. It can even pull up webcams of traffic, and evacuation routes. 

But even when everything is completely normal, utility managers still want to know as much as they possibly can, because, frankly, they prefer to produce only as much power as customers are willing to pay for. Electricity moves essentially at the speed of light. If it is not used, as soon as it’s generated, it goes to waste. But the alternative, a black-out, is obviously unacceptable. So, the current grid depends on what utility companies call “Peaker Plants.” Nobody likes them. Peakers cost money to build and maintain. They run on fuel that isn’t bought at the best market prices. So “Peak Power” becomes expensive power. Yet “Peaker Plants” sit idle most of the time. 

This new intelligent InterGrid could eliminate most “Peakers” by anticipating consumers’ demands through interactive price signals. As engineers say, “If you can measure it, you can manage it.” Utimately the InterGrid will be judged on how well it does 4 things:

　　· Keeping money in consumer’s pockets

　　· Making communities safer, more secure and increasingly self-reliant

　　· Supporting stable power utilities running on sustainable domestic resources

　　· Protecting and improving earth environment.

So, what will it cost to do all this? Estimate for the total investment needed here in the United States at about 1.5 trillion dollars over 20 years, beginning 2010, but amazingly, that’s just about the amount of money needed anyway, just to keep the lights on, whether we make the grid smarter, cleaner and safer, or just simply keep it working alone.