The Case for Energy Decentralization

OK, so you’re feeling the pinch of the most recent energy crunch. It sounds like a good idea to drill for oil in the backyard and put the vacation home up for sale to make room for that nuclear power plant you were so opposed to last year. Wait! Wait! Don’t panic!

Energy supply is not merely the provenance of OPEC or the giant corporate providers to the power grid in America. The value of having large corporate interests power your home has faded and is a security risk to America. Technology exists today, and is being continually advanced, that gives us the opportunity to change the way we view power supply, offering us improved security while enhancing the way we live. This technology puts power in the hands of each household in America and releases the stranglehold power companies have on you and your family. Energy independence can begin at home. You and your family can be independent of the energy industry. Our nation can stop being bankrupted by the energy industry.

National security is jeopardized by centrally supplied power sources for the simple reason that potential attacks against a centralized source must be defended against. This is accomplished only at great cost and with incalculable use of the very energy we seek to conserve. Centralized power creates a condition of ever-mounting expense related to staying ahead of possible attacks. If electric supply is decentralized (supplied by each household) the ability for attacks against “the” power supply is nearly eliminated. Further decentralization of government and corporate locations would also greatly reduce or eliminate any need for large-scale centralized power. In order to affect power supply adversely an attacker would need to disrupt millions of individual households and businesses not merely one central location eliminating the need for massive security efforts and permanently securing our energy supply. The reduction in centrally supplied energy needs would eliminate all reliance on foreign energy sources and could be achieved one home at a time. Expansion of drilling leases would provide only the possibility for minimal relief and would require at least a ten-year investment of resources before any potential benefit could be realized. The subsidies being provided to the oil giants could be better spent assisting Americans in become personally energy independent. Yes, personally energy independent. The spirit of the rugged individualist can be expressed though each household’s independence from the grip of big oil, gas and coal.