The Peak Oil Crisis: Smart Meters

It’s going to be an electric world. For those of you who have been following the peak oil story, it is becoming increasingly clear that liquid fuels for the average person’s transportation has a very short half-life. It won’t be long before we figure out that natural gas is too valuable for making stuff to waste on cooling our air, drying our laundry, heating our baths and keeping our homes warm.

Coal, too, has problems. Recent studies suggest there just may not be hundreds of years worth buried out there, and one of these days, a critical mass of us will figure out we had better start sequestering carbon or the great grandchildren are toast. Coal is not going to be cheap.


At this technological minute, the only realistic choices for the decades ahead seem to be more electrification of everything or a partial rerun of the 19th century. There is also little question that electricity is going to become much more expensive. Coal, nuclear plants, natural gas and the construction of nearly everything to do with producing more energy is becoming much more expensive. We simply are going to have to figure out how to keep going with much less. We will need much more energy-efficient homes, offices, vehicles and appliances – or do without.

An important step in transitioning to the new electric world took place last month for those of us here in Virginia, when Dominion Power announced next year they would begin installing 200,000 “smart” electric meters at trial locations around the Commonwealth. (Unfortunately, Falls Church is not part of the test – perhaps sometime in the next 3 – 5 years.) Smart meters, which have been around for the last 10 years or so, have the potential to bring major changes to the way we use – and more importantly – how we will conserve electricity in the future.

Falls Church News-Press