BRIEFING: "Smart grids: Wiser wires; Information technology can make electricity grids less wasteful and much greener. Businesses have lots of ideas and governments are keen, but obstacles remain," The Economist, 10 October 2009.

The greatest engineering achievement of the 20th century? America's National Academy of Engineering said in 200 that it was "the vast networks of electrification," which made everything else possible.

But here's the rub: cars and everything else mechanical and computing have gotten so much more sophisticated with each passing decade, whereas our electrical nets basically have the same set-up and technology. Most utilities don't know if the grid is down--unless consumers call them up.

So what is the "smart grid"? All sorts of IT, such as sensors, digital meters and an Internet-like comms net that makes everything "smart" in the sense that information can be derived from and through them and transmitted over them.

It would thus make energy efficiencies possible and allow new networking opportunities, like electric cars and distributed generation (many sites all over the grid generating power instead of just one or a few main stations).

Plenty of money in the stimulus packages set aside for this, and over $1B in VC money in start-ups. Most promising is the joining up of IT firms like Cisco and IBM with major energy providers.

But the larger point: a smart grid should boost technology and engineering overall just like the original grids did. Lots of details to be worked out, naturally, but the point is the overall thrust and so many new players to the game seeing opportunity.

This is good.