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Going Local

When Henry Kissinger quipped, "Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac," he wasn't talking about electric utilities. But readers deluged us with email and online comments about staff writer Anya Kamenetz's July/August article on microgrids. Skeptics worried about costs, subsidies, and monitoring locally generated power fed back into the grid ("Your neighbors don't want dirty power corrupting their PCs or LCD TVs"), but no one denied the appeal of more renewable energy.

Sparks Fly

As an economist at the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities and one of many implementing the Green Communities Act, I was delighted to read "Beyond the Grid" (July/August). With all the buzz about adding intelligence to the electricity infrastructure through advanced technologies and distributed generation, the idea of new cumbersome transmission lines is a step in the opposite direction. Routing electricity, even from renewable sources, across the continent begs serious questioning of such costs and benefits.

Erin Malone

Boston, Massachusetts

My perception has been that the structure of the utility determines the receptiveness to change. Take the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD), with a board of directors that is directly elected by the popular vote in Sacramento. This is a leadership team that listens to customers. It was the initial leader in photovoltaic (PV) systems. Investor-owned utilities are reluctant to come to the table; irrigation districts (actually electric utilities in California) are quite receptive to innovative renewable-energy opportunities.

Joseph McCabe

Littleton, Colorado

The true cost of local renewables is actually double the price of grid-based electricity. The author does not include the substantial government-mandated subsidies, being paid indirectly by taxpayers and ratepayers, that make local renewables look economically attractive. While there are subsidies to grid-based electricity as well, they are modest in comparison. In order to move forward with a green plan that will not bankrupt us, we need to make decisions based on actual costs. We need to understand that grid-based electricity is incredibly cheap, and that it will be difficult to match in terms of economy. Although the cost of renewables and related technologies is decreasing, we would need some disruptive breakthroughs in photovoltaics and inverters to get close to the price of grid power.

Ross Baldick

Austin, Texas

Writer Anya Kamenetz responds: The concept of "true cost" can indeed be a slippery thing. For more than 100 years, our federal, state, and local tax dollars have helped pay for the grid, power plants, coal mines, and oil derricks. Utilities' advantages are written into the laws from coast to coast. Rate setting allows utilities to recover their costs predictably, which in turn gives them access to low-cost capital, and eminent-domain processes give them access to land. Federal money also goes to utilities directly. According to a 2007 report by the GAO, federal appropriations for electricity R&D totaled $11.5 billion from 2002 to 2007, while federal tax breaks related to elec-tricity production totaled $18.2 billion. When you add in the cost for our military to defend petroleum-production sites around the world, oil alone costs taxpayers some $39 billion a year. Congress is attempting to put a real figure on the environmental costs from global warming, which has been estimated in the trillions, with cap-and-trade legislation. Viewed from that angle, fossil-fuel generated, grid-based electricity is anything but cheap. 

Amazon vs. Apple

After the lessons that should have been learned from the music and film industries, publishers should be planning to cover their collective assets right about now ("The Evolution of Amazon," July/August). Thanks for keeping an eye on the primordial soup of publishing's evolution.

Jon De Graff

Bronx, New York

The biggest draw of the Kindle seems to be the "always on" Sprint EV-DO wireless, which allows not only immediate book downloads from the store but also adventures (with lots of obstacles) getting around the rest of the Net, at no further cost. It could be the Amazon crowd does like to read and isn't disappointed to see no whiz-bang features.

Andrys Basten

Berkeley, California

I'm an ex-apple exec. I just got my Kindle. It's a good news/bad news story -- for Amazon. Good design. Obvious marketing/sales opportunity. Really falls short in out-of-the-box experience. There's no wow factor. I get a dictionary and documentation? Why not start me off with the book of my choice? There's a real opportunity for Apple to jump in and become the "hot" book choice. Bezos has left the door open.

Lisa Wellman

Mercer Island, Washington