<story><title>The humble USB cable is part of an electrical revolution</title><url>http://www.economist.com/news/international/21588104-humble-usb-cable-part-electrical-revolution-it-will-make-power-supplies</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>kabdib</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s going to be interesting, from a security standpoint. One of the original cracks on the PS3 was via the USB stack. I&amp;#x27;d not go plugging my computers or phones into jacks that I don&amp;#x27;t necessarily control.&lt;p&gt;I can see a market for buffering devices that allow power through, and perhaps do power negotiation for you, but that do not allow data traffic. I believe these devices already exist. though I don&amp;#x27;t know how sophisticated they are.</text></comment>
<story><title>The humble USB cable is part of an electrical revolution</title><url>http://www.economist.com/news/international/21588104-humble-usb-cable-part-electrical-revolution-it-will-make-power-supplies</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>Brakenshire</author><text>This is interesting as a contribution to the solar net metering debate. If you have a local low-voltage DC network, perhaps backed up by a UPS, you can charge the UPS battery using solar, and that means that solar electricity generated on-site automatically displaces grid electricity at the retail rate. That means that solar would only need to compete with the retail price of conventional electricity, and not the generation cost. And solar cost is already at or near parity with retail price in many parts of the world:&lt;p&gt;This is 2010: &lt;a href=&quot;http://reneweconomy.com.au/2012/solar-pv-its-cheaper-than-you-think-58689/bnef-12&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;reneweconomy.com.au&amp;#x2F;2012&amp;#x2F;solar-pv-its-cheaper-than-yo...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;And this is 2025: &lt;a href=&quot;http://reneweconomy.com.au/2012/solar-pv-its-cheaper-than-you-think-58689/bnef-2025&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;reneweconomy.com.au&amp;#x2F;2012&amp;#x2F;solar-pv-its-cheaper-than-yo...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;(Countries above the isobar have lower solar costs than the price of electricity from the grid)</text></comment>