Dana Blankenhorn has a fascinating piece on the need for a new kind of electrical grid for the country. This is one of the topics I had no real interest in until I ended up in Manhattan in the dark with no answering machine, no air conditioning, no cash machines, and, oh yea, no power. According to Blankenhorn, one route is to create much more home-grown electricity–solar generators, windmills, etc.–and this, he says, was actually Thomas Edison’s original idea for generating electricity.
“…In the 1880s Edison and his engineers actually installed a generator in J.P. Morgan’s home, which they hoped would become a model. Of course, Edison believed in Direct Current (DC). When Nikola Tesla proved that Alternating Current (AC) would deliver current from a great distance with minimal loss, the big industry of the time was transformed into today’s electric utility marketplace. Edison lost his place within General Electric, which had bought his company, and the grid as we know it was born.”