Brittle Power- PARTS 1-3 (+Notes) - Natural Capitalism Solutions

34Brittle Powerfrom liquefied natural gas (LNG) or nuclear plants, oil pollution, nuclear proliferation,noise, coal dust, heat releases, esthetic damage); desire to defendcertain social structures or values (free enterprise, small business, local selfreliance);or even perceived vulnerability itself.It does not matter here how far these diverse concerns are justified or howwidely they are shared. The important thing is that they represent views sincerelyand strongly held by citizens of a democracy who believe they are entitledto give their views political and practical effect. Many historical examplessuggest, too, that attempts to bypass or suppress such concerns bear highpolitical costs and often turn out in hindsight to be a refusal to listen to warningsof serious errors in policy. 10For present purposes, however, it is sufficient to note that major energy facilitiesof any kind—like highways, water projects, chemical factories, or toxic wastedumps—can come to represent to many people a highly visible focus for grievancesabout the project itself or broader issues. By threatening direct and undesiredimpacts or by symbolizing perceived inequities, such a facility can be, fromthe standpoint of civil disturbances, an attractive nuisance. Nuclear facilities, particularlyin Europe, are clearly among the most prominent lightning-rods forsuch social tensions: 11 hence the official interest in assessing how likely it is thatopposition to such plants might motivate some people to attack them. 12Centralization of suppliesPrimary fuel sources—oil and gas fields, coal mines, uranium mines—haveto be where the fuel is in the ground. Dams have to be where the water is.Refineries and power plants have to be so sited that it is not too costly to supplytheir fuel and deliver their products. The usual result of these logisticaland economic requirements is to site major energy sources and conversionplants relatively far from their final users. Earlier in American history, heavyindustry tended to go where the energy was, and cities followed the factories.Thus the mill towns of New England went to the waterpower, and later anindustrial heartland grew in the Midwest near the coalfields.But in this century, people became more mobile, new technologies weredeveloped for cheaply moving fuels thousands of miles to market, and convenientnear-urban sites for new plants were exhausted. For those reasons, thedistance between major energy facilities and their customers has steadilyrisen. This increasing geographic separation has had two obvious effects. Ithas concentrated the facilities themselves into a small area (for example, nearWestern coalfields), making them more vulnerable to all sorts of disruptions.And it has made the connecting links longer and hence more tenuous, expos-