California Proposition 7:
Redefining Renewable Energy to Concentrate Power
by James Hoffman and Victoria Ashley

(excerpt)
Proposition 7 mandates the centralized model of energy generation at the expense of the decentralized / distributed model. The advantages of the decentralized renewable energy economy for California are obvious: power generation assets will be owned by millions of individuals and businesses instead of a few giant conglomerates. The infrastructure will be essentially immune from the disruption and manipulation that Californians are all too familiar with. And that infrastructure will use existing rooftop space instead of gobbling up hundreds of square miles of pristine desert lands.

Why, then, would the centralized fossil-fuel model be applied to ubiquitous clean renewable energy resources? In a word, profits.
(con't)

Read the linked article about how the power companies are afraid of distributed power generation, and PV.

http://grist.org/article/solar-panels-could-destroy-u-s-utilities-according-to-u-s-utilities/

This is the best argument against these subsidies for long distance power grids, and for nuke plants like San Onofre.

While I personally think that the best "deal" for nuke is a 1:1 replacement of old plants, as a dying gasp for the old centralized model, it's legit to fight against that dirty business as a whole. When a plant is as broken as Onofre, you might as well mothball it and focus on the future. (It's just, compared to coal, nuke is almost preferable.)

Local generation is the future, and I think not just wind and PV, which are the cleanest, but even local burning of gas. Why pump the oil or dig for coal to burn for electricity, when you can just tap the gas deposit and burn it directly? It's bad for the atmosphere, but not as bad as the other fossil fuels.

Local generation atop landfills produces modest amounts of power, but it's basically free after you build the turbines, and you reduce methane emissions. Put a couple windmills up as long as you're building up there. Maybe some solar too. Suddenly, the dump is more valuable.

Kudos to Hoffman and Ashley for seeing the future five years ago.