Roland had an excellent post on Nano devices providing real time information on power outages and other RTU type information to improve power distribution in general two days ago. http://hardware.slashdot.org/hardware/06/11/08/239258.shtml Simplifying availability of information from control systems is going to greatly increase safety and utility over the next 10 years. It is going to happen in a similar manner to the other communication changes that have occurred in the last decade. There are risks though and we should be asking if we are comfortable with existing IT architectures controlling power lines, oil and gas pipeline and water treatment and distribution systems. http://dcssec.blogspot.com/2006/11/sigh-wireless-scada.html This concern should be even greater with wireless SCADA systems.