Obama's 7 Wacky Global Warming Fixes

Our current electrical grid is outdated and inefficient, and a big chunk of the stimulus—about $4.5 billion—is devoted to modernization. For example, the Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. received a $200 million stimulus grant to install smart meters in the homes of roughly 2 million Maryland customers. The idea is that people would be able to watch the price of electricity fluctuate at different times during the day and adjust accordingly, running their dishwashers during off-peak hours, for example, thus saving money and easing the strain on the grid. Down the road, the smarter meters could eventually help consumers choose between dirty and clean sources of electricity or instantly alert the utility company to sources of grid failures, reducing outages. All told, BGE says the devices could reduce electric bills by some $2.6 billion.