First of which is local power production (as in each individual housing unit) does not require a power distribution grid at all. This would minimize the possibility of natural disasters and terrorist attacks affecting vast numbers of individuals.

Secondly, a decentralized plan could be individually taylored to individual needs and would not place all of us at the mercy of the energy producers (read as power companies, oil and gas producers).

This combined with continued development of the electric car (recharged at home most of the time) could virtually eliminate our dependance on energy companies for home energy needs and thus return control of our lives to the individual.

These things are do-able today. I know because I have been designing passsive and active solar homes for well over thirty years.

This system costs more up front than running overhead lines, but its operating losses are limited to the cost of the initial extraction of the hydrogen to cool the pipeline. And it is ideal for low-voltage transmission. But a higher voltage always conveys more power per amp. And there is a limit to the current that superconductors can carry and still be superconductors. But this current limit is well above what a comparable copper line at room temperature can take without melting.

This design came about not so much as a result of electrical research, but as part of the hydrogen initiative. It is basically a way to pipe liquid hydrogen over a long distance. So why not just put a superconducting cable into the pipe?

We investigated converting when we moved, but even with energy credits, we would take 17 years to recoup the cost of installation of a solar system at our house. The incentives are made artificially low to discourage converting to solar.

Companies that are retrofitting cars to use alternative fuels are beginning to see lawsuits from major US auto manufacturers, and oil companies are influencing the wording of biofuel bills so that they can control the production and pricing of that as well. I’m afraid that as long as the people who profit from keeping things the same are the ones making and influencing government decisions, only individuals will be making changes.

A much more efficient way of storing energy for is in Thermal storage tanks or in pumped storage reservoirs such as the Raccoon Mountain facility ( http://www.tva.gov/sites/raccoonmt.htm ). Also the power loss in long distance power transmission is well documented. The reason we have AC power distribution is because of this. Alternating current can be easily transformed to a higher voltage with a lower current, and stepped down to a lower voltage with a hughe current. Because the transmission lines have an internal resistance, which becomes significant over distances of more than a few dozen feet . the cumulative line resistance over a distance of even 100 miles will limit the available power (assuming an initial voltage of 110 volts, and a linear resistance of .00001 Ohms per foot would limit power to around 2.5 KiloWatts. At 15,000 volts, the power is limited to 45 MegaWatts
The article shows just how endoctrinated American society is with the centralised hierarchy mythology. We should really take a clue from the homes in the Austrailian outback and in New Zealand.
While we hear a lot of praise for “high” technology, and much info discounting “low technology”, but in between the two lies the realm of “intermediate technology” . Intermediate technology is the application of decentralized, devices that take advantage of local power sources. A prime example is the hydraulic ram. The simplest description of a hydraulic ram is that it is a water-powered water pump.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_ram
Hydraulic rams are common in parts of Appalachia and have been in third-world countries to supply water to small viliages