The dawn of micropower
Much of the world gets its electricity from big, inefficient and dirty power plants situated far from consumers. That will soon change
THOMAS EDISON was a man of great foresight, but who would have thought he could have been more than 100 years ahead of his time? When he set up his first heat-and-electricity plant near Wall Street in 1882, he imagined a world of micropower. Edison thought the best way to meet customers' needs would be with networks of nimble, decentralised power plants in or near homes and offices. What goes around, comes around. After a century that seemed to prove Edison wrong—with power stations getting ever bigger, and the transmission grids needed to distribute their product ranging ever wider—local generation for local consumption is back in fashion.
This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline “The dawn of micropower”
From the August 5th 2000 edition
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