English 421Y: Technical Writing Online

http://www.smartgridnews.com/artman/publish/article_289.html

The first article researched deals with the topic of smart grid technology. This article was found from smartgridnews.com, a leading source for news and analysis of the modernization of electrical distribution systems. This article discusses and describes the several environmental benefits attained by implementing smart grid technologies. In terms of our white paper, the environmental benefits of modernizing the electrical grid are probably not as important as economic benefits, as decision makers are likely more concerned with dollar savings. However, policy makers have become more environmentally aware in the recent future, and the information in this article is very pertinent to our white paper.

This article is written by an environmental engineer from Stanford University. He has experience consulting government agencies on new energy technology. His experience and academic background make him a very credible source on this topic. The information is presented objectively, and he does a good job of eliminating bias in his article. It is important to look for this in an article. This is especially so when some of the subject matter is hard to quantify, as it is with smart grid technologies.

Specifically, I’ll likely use the information regarding efficiency, air pollution management, and methods of calculating and monitoring environmental footprint. There are no pictures, graphs, or tables to use from this article, so I will have to look elsewhere for these.