And here's where the fuming part comes in. Instead of creating huge, expensive, time consuming utility infrastructure projects, what if we started thinking of our relationship to energy consumption in another way? What if we put resources into helping people generate their own energy locally? And, by locally, I mean produce and use the energy right at the source--at people's homes. We have the technologies for large solar panels on rooftops, and that are so well designed that you have to look a second time to realize they're even there. And some of these installations produce more power than the homeowner needs. We have the ability to use vertical, spiral-shaped wind generators on rooftops to help sustain energy use when the sun isn't shining, but where the wind usually blows. We don't necessarily need to install giant, three-bladed turbines on ugly 60-foot lattice towers. So...what if we helped people literally "get off the grid" but without leaving the city? What if excess power was shunted back to a local community grid, instead of back to an investor-owned utility grid?

There is a huge market coming in high-efficiency, high-output battery technology that will help make electric cars a reality. That same technology can be used to help store locally-generated electricity in the home for those times when the sun isn't shining, or the wind isn't blowing. If people can generate their electricity from home, store it efficiently, and charge their cars' batteries from home, then we really get to a different twist on the old "power to the people" slogan. Only in this case people's power is economic. We create a disruptive technology that not only eliminates our being tethered to foreign oil. We eliminate the huge concern that a smart energy grid that's managed "in the cloud" could be disrupted by cyber attack. We do away with total reliance on the kinds of companies whose livelihood depends on keeping their customers totally dependent and having no alternatives.

I realize that many people think this is a crazy idea. But just a few years ago, people thought battery-powered cars were just a dream. They were, instead, looking at hydrogen-powered or fuel-cell-powered cars, both of which required new, expensive infrastructure (and government subsidies) to support. Look at who stands to benefit most from all of this new smart grid construction--the oil and gas companies, and the investor-owned utilities. And, guess who gets to pay for most of the construction in the form of subsidies and tax breaks? Taxpayers, of course.

So, what if we start asking questions about individuals' relationship to their energy consumption by looking at it from a local energy production standpoint? What if we provided real, meaningful tax incentives to homeowners instead of to the energy companies and the electric utilities? That kind of end-user incentive would also spur the development of new technologies from independent manufacturers at the local level as well.

A dream? Maybe. But it bears discussion, especially before we start spending hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars on everything from "clean coal" (if there is such a thing), to nuclear energy, and a massive new electricity grid that's managed via the Internet.

How about we just...ask different questions?