Letter: New technology makes centralized power plants outmoded - The Mercury News

New systems better than
centralized power plants

Re: “Manjoo: It’s the end of California as we know it” (Opinion section, Mercurynews.com, Oct. 31):

Farhad Manjoo’s oped suggests, among other suggestions, that California design the power grid to serve more people more effectively.

Inventors Edison, Westinghouse and Tesla established the first electricity systems to be centralized with power plants connected to users by long transmission lines.

For the most part, centralized power generation is still in place today. Yet, new power generation technologies and storage systems make centralized power out-moded. We now have the means to provide our electricity more locally.

Local power makes local control more feasible. If needed to avoid wildfires, you would be able to shut off power in Geyserville without interrupting power to many other communities. Existing long transmission lines would only be needed as backup to local power.

A carbon fee and dividend policy would not only encourage the use of renewable power, but would also encourage the replacement of our existing centralized system with local systems.

Rob Hogue
Menlo Park

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