On Alt Energy

On Alt Energy

Riff on this, specifically:(http://www.vox.com/2014/9/29/6849723/solar-power-net-metering-utilities-fight-states)

Boo Fucking Hoo.
The Giant Utilities' Business Model is no longer viable...and they want the Government to step in and protect them from competition.
After all these years of “Free Market!!!”, and “Deregulate!!!!”...and an insistence that TINA, There Is No Alternative, to gigantic Hydraulic Empires, Centralized Power Plants, with their attendant spiderweb of wires strung across the land....after all of that, now, when a viable alternative presents itself,...now they want “Uncle Sugar” to step in and protect them from the Little Guys.
To stomp down the Individual and Neighborhood level Power Generation with which they cannot compete...
Folks at the American Society of Engineers have been saying for years that the Grid is in terrible shape...that it would cost Billions to Upgrade and Fix.
That Grid, when working perfectly, is prone to ice and tree damage, damage due to Bubba running his truck into a pole, and malfunctions due to the long term failure to maintain all of the myriad parts and pieces that constitutes the thing...let alone the fact that around 40% of the power generated at those gigantic pollution mills(Power Plants), is “Lost in Transmission”...it simply radiates into the surrounding air.
The Grid must be rebuilt...that is a Fact.
But we are not Obligated to Rebuild it in it's existing, 20th Century form.
Rather, we should rebuild it the way the Original World Wide Web was constructed.
Decentralised, Interconnected, and therefore Robust.
There's a better way, if We can get the current beneficiaries of the current paradigm to turn loose, and to get out of the way.