A smarter electric grid

Fortune has an article which focuses on Ray Bell and his "smart meter" but talks about how other players including GE, Clearwire, Itron are focused on making our grid much more  of a communications "closed-loop"

Also, past week, "Mike" Markkula, original founder of Echelon; Scott McNealy, Chairman of Sun Microsystems; and Jim Rogers,    CEO of Duke Energy presented at an event hosted by  Echelon whose LonWorks platform, is nearly 100 million    devices in buildings, streetlights, utilities, and homes.