the recent events in NY show the problem with centralized systems.. there is no direct power in over 1 square mile of NYC, since a substation was destroyed.. only facilities with back up generators didn't lose/have power. (there are giant "extention cords" all over the place bringing power into the area)
Telephone service (centralized sytem) has still not been restored to many, many places, both in and out of the no go zone. but the internet (a distributed system!) never went down.. i was unable to call my son, my phone had a dial tone, but i couldn't make anything but local calls. but 6PM on the 11th, i was able to get on line..
one of the underling causes of the conflict in mid east, is our (USA!) dependence on oil. maybe we should be using a distributed system, for power, and locally harnessing available resources. for me, there is almost a 10 year payback for a wind generating system, (and yes, i think my house, on top of hill gets enough of a breeze to power a wind generator) but if oil/natural gas where more expensive, my payback time might be shorter, and i might make the investment. I have too many trees on the south side, and live too far north to think of solar panels as an alternate energy source. but electricty has gotten expensive enough in CA to make them viable. in many sub urban areas, there are old, unused wells these could be used for geothermal energy conversion.
our centralize, power distributions monopolys have often pressured for laws to discourage distributed systems. maybe its time we rethought this. we have great infrastructure in US.. but like our old smokestack industries, maybe our investment in this technology is now becoming a hindrence.
