The need to transform electric generation from high carbon fossil fuels to non-carbon sources presents the opportunity to reorient electric generation from centralized to distributed systems. Such a transformation would also preserve western landscapes. But, as noted above, the Environmental Establishment is too close to the Obama Administration and too enamored of large-scale energy solutions to take such action. That leaves the field open to smaller, regional and local environmental groups. Not just in Wyoming but all over the West grassroots green groups are linking up with former adversaries to fight against large power development and the transmission lines they require.

This article reports on the remarkable development that even northwestern conservatives (in the U.S.A., and Wyoming in particular) are becoming ‘preservationists’ and allying themselves with progressive environmentalists.

But within the latter, a conflict is brewing over centralized vs. decentralized energy:

“The Greens could make common cause with right-wing rural preservationists in opposition to large power generation developments, intrusive transmission lines and top-down command and control government action. That would build relationships and could pay huge environmental dividends down the line. But there is a problem: the Sierra Club and other major environmental groups have endorsed the Obama Administration’s push for large, low-carbon energy generation developments and the major transmission lines needed to bring that power to where it is consumed. That puts the environmental establishment into direct conflict with the new rural preservationists.

The alternative to large centralized power plants and ugly high voltage lines to supply the grid is decentralized generation, also know as distributed generation. Distributed generation “reduces the amount of energy lost in transmitting electricity because the electricity is generated very near where it is used, perhaps even in the same building. This also reduces the size and number of power lines that must be constructed.”

Distributed electric generation was the way commercial electric service began in this country. The first commercial power plant – the Pearl Street plant in New York City – was constructed by Thomas Edison in 1882. It utilized the waste heat of generation to heat neighborhood buildings to which it also supplied electricity. Edison favored a distributed electric generation systems using direct current. But his views did not prevail. Instead the ideas of Nikola Tesla – who favored alternating power and large centralized generation – came to dominate.

The need to transform electric generation from high carbon fossil fuels to non-carbon sources presents the opportunity to reorient electric generation from centralized to distributed systems. Such a transformation would also preserve western landscapes. But, as noted above, the Environmental Establishment is too close to the Obama Administration and too enamored of large-scale energy solutions to take such action. That leaves the field open to smaller, regional and local environmental groups. Not just in Wyoming but all over the West grassroots green groups are linking up with former adversaries to fight against large power development and the transmission lines they require. Whether and how this will change western environmental politics over the longer term remains to be seen.”

Bill Gibson, who forwarded this story, writes that:

Note reference to the Public Trust Doctrine. The concept of the commons gaining ground in the Rocky Mountains.