“SMALL is beautiful,” wrote the economist E. F. Schumacher almost 35 years
ago. In most areas of the economy, he reasoned, production had become too big
and too centralized.
But he might have been wrong about the subject he knew most about: energy.
When it comes to alternative ways of generating power, big may be better.
Wind, solar and other renewable-energy technologies that were once considered
more appropriate for single homes or small communities are reaching levels of
scale and centralizing that were formerly the province of coal- and gas-fired
plants and nuclear reactors. In other words, green is going giant.
The companies that are building or dreaming up large projects argue that there
are economies of scale to be gained.
In the desert north of Tucson, Arizona Public Service, an electric utility, is
using an array of mirrors to concentrate sunlight and heat mineral oil up to 550
degrees; the heat ...