captioned by the national captioni institute --www.icap.org-- >> hlo, i'm llewellyn king, host of "white hou chronicle," whicis coming right up, but first, a few thoughts my own. >as you know, the country has been roiled by the debatever energy in the age of obama. we are here inan francisco

wher the edison elecic institute isolding a meeting with the purpo of finding out re about the future of electricity. what ist going to cost us? how will we genere it? it is erribly a vital service that we allepend on. you know, sentences go is a city that does different things to different people. i think this is the ho of -- i thinkf this as the home of william randolph arst and his nepapers that would not have be if he oris newspapers had not me on the scene at the same time as electricit to turn his psses, to make type t ofead. i think first of electricity and of this really gre arican city, sentences go. i hope we can tell our viewers and show tm something intesting about the future of

th because it affects every single o of us. >> hel, i'm llewellyn king, host of "white houschronicle," whicis coming right up, but first, a few thoughts my own. >> "white house chronicle"s produced in claboration with ut howard university television. and now, the proam host, national syndicated columnist llewellyn king, and co-ht, linda gasparel. >> i am joine by john easton from the eson electric institute for international affairs. in my book, maybe theest job in the organizatn. wellcome. >> good to be with you. >> there are two buzzwor aroundere. one is cap and trade. the other is altertive energy.

inurope, these things e rather more advancedn some ways. germany s more alternative energy. of course,hey are on their second version of cap and trade, which is the idea at cold -- coal otheemissions will bapped and there is the ability to buy credits. what happened in europe the first time? he first ti that europe had the cap and trade, itwas called the emissions trading scheme. it w meant to be trial period. is pbably a good thi that it was. they found thathey over allocated the allowances. at one pnt, aftert was scovered, the companies had far more allowances that they needed the system collapsed a they learned a lrom that situion. one of the reasonshat happened

is because they did no have good data going in. that is th differencewith our system. we know what ourlants are in bidding, so we ll be much more refined. >> w were the winners in europe? was a francehe winner? was germany e winner? >> i thinkt is early to tell who the winnersill ultimately be because that first time was just ineffect at test. ultimately, the winners will be the citizens if theybring dow carbon emissns. what is importa to me -- and i ked the question the other d -- all this talk about capnd trade, how much of that system brought downmissions in europe? athis point, not that muc part of the decrease in emissins is the genal economic cline. we expect more results o of the u.s. >> our abili to do capnd

trade dependsn other couries doing it as well, correc >> certainly that has bn one of the conrnsropounded by some cgressmen. they dnot want to expose added cos to their constituents. we have made it very car that we have climate priiples, that we wt some kind ofrotective meure to make sur that cost did not go outf sight. some sort of priceolerance so it wld come thin certain limits. in northern europe, gmany which is ve far north actually had the most solar and wind per installed. thats quite expenve. >> it is expensive. some people suggest the reason is expensive is because of the way they degn their tariff to provide incentis for people

to develop altertive energy. ou experiencen the 1970's would be the law which required ilitieso buy poweror an extended time andvoided cost. >> it is just that inead of burningour own barn, i is somebody else' >> right. we were concerned about any kind of proposal here that provide e incentives through taxes we were concerned abou the negative eeriences of compies during that mandatory purchase time. >> there seems to be inurope -- you have coal, germany. you have spain. you have when dfrance. -- windy france.

france has nuclear. they do not ally need to velop winills. is it not odd >> i tnk tt part of it is one of the things we watch out for from policy standpoint, this idea that the goverent's want to -- governnts want to impose an ideal on the indtry whether or n it wht still makes see. historically our renable energy standd is in the southeast. to have a national standd mea -- >> explain tt to our viers. southeast, whi iseally from washinon down to florida. there is not much wind in summer. >> that is correct. >> there is a lot of sunlight. a lof flowers. you he a very large population area on the coasthat would not be terbly well served by wind

power. or by sor power. >> if you look at what states have adoed renewable standards -- >> whichs a government mandate. >> it is mandate. 29 states have these. if you look the stheastern states, none have adopted a cause they did not have those resources. -- none have adopted it bause they did not have those sources. if we go to a national staard, it will mean the states have toffectively buy that energy from somewhere else. that will come at a cost to their citize. >> u have bn at mother superior about the tap of soline. they also have many more diesel cars. they do not make annoys like

other machines. every diesel engine makes nois. how is it that europns have achievedhis? should we copthem? >> like so many things in europe, ey have a different perhaps cultura background on regulation and legislaon. through thr tax picies, europeans achieved some of this by taxin some very highly. wall know that weay a lot more for gasoline i europe than we do ithe states. partf how we -- how they hieved this was taxolicies that wou never workn the uned states. have they been successfu i think certain in the development of highly-performing it diesel engines, they have been quite successful in europe, and i suspect we mayee that come across to the atlantic -- or across the atlantic. however, it may disrupt the

intentn toevelopybrids. >> whichs very exciting. alternative,ap and trade hybrids. we have polluon. if alsoeans utilities sll have to find the powe. and pay for it. >> one of the advantage of going with hyids is that most people would be expected to chge tir aomobiles ithe evening hou whenlectricity demands at i lowest. we are talking srting at 100 at nig, running until 4:00 in th morning, havin favorable rates during that time, along with smart gritechnology. >> tt woulde good forhe utilities d good for the air. >> ultimately, it is qui possible that tse plug-in hybrids could be a distribor

resourceack to the grid durin the daytime hours. >> we are comlsive about trav. i envy you you job. >> thank you very much. >> i am ppy to be joined now by cra mundie,the chief research officer fromicrosoft. that ia legenda company. yours is an extraordinary job. thank you for being here. i want to tell you a story years ago, i was ibell lbs in w jersey. i was blo away by what they showed me. this was extraordinary. i went back to washiton, and on the train i w thinking -- there are so ny great inventions. the things i am interested in

ar not new inventions. the train,ewspapers, utilities. theare all using thnology that is 100 years o. this is still basically in boilg water to turn turbis. how'd you g deeper in the utilit business and change it? >> i think you will see technologylayer role in chging the energy and enviroent space. to egg- to a degree, it has. this will happen in a couple of ys. one, cane make theusiness of generating andelling power mo efficient? in pticular, if it invols this, will it be more distbuted, it will ba real requirement for muchmproved

networking, for command and control, billy. on the other han however t generation side is involved, nservation is goingo be important. i think computers provide a real opportunity now to change the pattern of consumption by making it more automatefor people, so they can take electives chces about being more conservative. thi that is one of the advances in computing and networking and thlow costf consumer electronics willake that possible. that will be the first big change. >>when you think thishange will be felt? -- when do you thinkhis change will bfelt? by the lower utilities? >> i think it will be in stages. we decided to be at the fst stage in the conseation focus aticrosoft, creating

something that does not ruire a technological or infrastructure shift. we are cating something called microsoft home,hich is a free -- >> and thais spelled -- >> o-h-m. this is a very fundamental, bac elerical concept. is a play on words to put an "h" in front ofhat. >> this is now available? if i go out next wk and buy it, wh will i get? >>irst of all, you do not have to bnything. just go to the microsoft website. it will give you an introduction and ask you a simple questis. it starts askingou your zip code. we rognize that whi we want

to build cplex models to be able to gde recommendions, it is ve difficult to preme people wouldnow all the necessary informaon. we start by doing yourrofile, with a s of default parameter developed for youzip code. this has worked ad then the internatnal laborories through the years. we put a friendly wrapper around it. then ibegins to take you through the dierent aspects of your home. when was it built? what materials was it constructive from? whirection does it face? very sime questions. you are bically providing more an more detailed informatn. at any pnt, you can stop, and we run a very complex mathematicalodel of your home and come back with a characterizatio of yr energ nsumption.

from that,e can help you unrstand what matters and does not matter. >> when you make observations -- they arevery inresting and welleceived. one queion is aboutrivacy. we feethat we have none. all we know belongs to the gat computer whatever, the credit card the problems utilities may face with the smart grid and smart technology, there is the sense that big broth is in the house now. it is an area of gat focus for us. 2000, 2001, bill gates and i creaed a program called t trust throh computing issue. it was focused on what the company would he to do to assure the public so they did not have these qualms aut chnology. we foced on privac security,

reliability, and inter-opera ability. >>--nteroperability. all of o programs are launched with an eye to satisfying these constrais. we have seen the lease of personalecords. this is arguablyven worse. this was examined in gat detailby regulator pvacy advocates, cizen advocates and we ce through with flyin colors. today, having succeed in creating a model of h to ta this data and be a trustworthy with the data, we can apply tha

same model to thenergy space. a ky part that is our promise at the data is your data, not our data. so we act an agent to hol it and only dischar, you know, disclosed it at youelection. that has a gre deal of emphasis of security around ich has created a space ere people are comfortable. >> do you thk he will do excing things for electricity and the coumers? the person dowthe line using yourechnologies? >> im optimistic. if i look at wha we have de in theealth field, i am excitedy the energy tt this is briing to another counity,he health-care community which, while technogically advanced, has not bn particularly technologically advand in the way ty approach their

patients. if you look at how the best hospitals in t country a working, there is a new way t bring the patient togetherith the practic i am hopeful we will he a similar phenomenons consumers find microft hoh >> i really hopeou succeed. we need a departu in the delive of electricity. ank you for talking with us. >> if there is a buzzword, it is a smart red. iear them all the time at the white hse. the smart grid is talking about nonstop. it is very imptant to the futu. particularly because it brings in the aernative for new energy sources. the smart grid i diffent

things to fferent people. one hope for the cability comes from the ceo of tendril corp,a boulder, colorado company. what does this meano you? >> if youo to a supmarket as a consumer, theupermarket gives u all the informati yomay. you can compe the prices o two loaves of bread on the shelf. you can look at the ingredients on the package. if you care about recycling, thatnformation is onhe paage. as you check out you get an instant itemize bill of everytng. you are perfectly equipped to manage the things thatou buy. can you igine gng to a supermarket th was r by your cal utility with the infoation because you wld

walk in and there is no price. we do not know the price of ou electricity in real time. we do not know how mucit cost to run the washing machine. as y check out, there wod be no check out you would be waived out int the car pk, and 45 days later he would have a bill with all of the shopping yohave done with one numb. what we are aut is ting to ve the electricity consution model closer to the supermket model. >> how will it work? " there is a real benefit for the consumer to -- >> there is a real benit for t consumer to ntrol their consumption. there is real, tangibl benefit to givin people information >> how will the smart grid, which is a computerized meter, how would it tell you which

appliances are makingt go up? >> here is a whole raft of coected appliances. they are connected seamlessly to the consumer. th read the consumption from the meter d the price slowe from t meter. at we are demonstrating here today with the refgerator, if the pricof electricity goes up, this is seamless t t csumer. you dnot see it. you do see it if y said the les. thereality is tre are plenty ofimes a d -- >> we come from a culte where ice is not iortant. what ishe timeline on the horizon? when wl we have th? >>it is starting now. it will takfiveears in any given ci. the early movers will be in the

next five years. i think it will still take anothefive years beyond that -- >> what are th chances we will have a lot of companies moving gether that are it incoatible? we will have this played out rge scale? >> i tnk there is a hazard of that. one thing the obama administration has dones if yowant this mon, you have to age on th pattern. that process is goin on today. the white house has kicked it off. >>he other thing i hear a lot abt is jobs bei created rough the smart grid, and traditiolly, energy has not been a source of jobs it s not been people- intensive. you get the price down, other industries have been attracted by the low cosof energy. all thwhile, and gas has not been traditionally high.

coal is ver high, andt is a very uortunate line of work. where you thinkhese jobs are coming from? >> i think there are jobs in the infrastructure se of things. if you build these concerated sources of renewable energy, there is a lot of wk associated with eracting those, buildg the links tt power the wire. in the unite statewhere we are toucng the consumer, there is our real tried to educate consumers about energy consumption. >> it has come out of this coerence, and some have expressed fear that this is also the spy in the kitch. one of the reasons not to go to the supermarket, not to use the smart card is that l of this informatio will be mined.

it may be coded, but notheless, it is your information. >> thats absolutely right. that is a very big concern. the csumer needs to make a decisionbout howuch they want to sha. we have this vie that -- it is almost a relign -- that the data it be systems create belongs to the consumer. it goes nowhe. unless the conmer says they wanted to go somewhere. >> we do not contr the fire wall. you control the fire wall. >> we will storthis information or you and we will not do anything unless you want this to. weo nothing but store it. for example, consumers are not willing to srifice any aunt of comforthen they are at home. they do notant the utility to turn their air-conditioning down whenhey are at home. t if they are a w, if they save $5, they will get a $5

rebate and they are wilng to let the utility no perhaps one day -- let the utility no brs when they are away -- let the utility know perhaps one their way. >> we get t sense with computers -- dial 9, if you know t name do that. this sense that the computers and the people running the computers have taken away our lives and left us witut peonalities. i called up supplier, and i said dyou have the number? no, i have a name. it is muc faste ifou have the number it made feel so small and awful. i detect -- the is one of female on this program.

people are complaining about this. they have the sense of being absolutely impotent in the face of the ock. then there i a national crisis like aig, and there is thsense that they eot players. the sense that they a vicms creases. >> i thi that is right. d that started whenhe utity industry has not traditionally thght of the consumer that way. all the focus haseen on giving utility conol and not in power inhe consumer. thiss much more about giving the consumer level control. everything shoulde optional. >> canada was working on this. are tre other countries aad of us on smar grids? >> i think there are. there are countries further on, some eopean countes.

italy sings to mind, as we as some of t nordic countri. there is mucmore aention going into what goes beyond the meter. >> it was a pleasure having you. please come back. and look after myrivacy. ank you. >> that i ourprogram for day. i would lik to remind yo can watc ts and other programs o the web at whchronicle. this is also oadcast on sirius xm radi cheers. >> "white house ronicle" is proded in collaboration with whut howard university television. from washington, d.c., ts has been "whithouse chronicle" -- a weekly analysis of e news with insig and a sense of mor, featuring llewellyn kin linda gasparelloand guests.

this program m be seen on pbs ations and cable access channels. see the program online, vis us at whitehouseronicle.com. see the program online, vis us at whitehouseronicle.com.