Local Energy Is Better

I found an interesting item on the Green Options blog today, citing a study from a Minneapolis think tank that claims small, local power sources are more efficient than consolidated power plants: 

The “Economies and Diseconomies of Scale” concludes that bigger is not always better. The Minneapolis-based ILSR analyzed the costs and return of wind power and ethanol, both major renewable energy sources in the Upper Midwest. While they are both less expensive to produce on a large scale, the costs of having to transmit the energy across long distances can negate those savings. That, coupled with the fact that large projects are generally owned by corporate or out-of-state interests, makes smaller, local projects more beneficial for the immediate community.

This reminds me of work the Rocky Mountain Institute has been doing for years, advocating a distributed power grid, which has the added benefit of being more secure, ie, less disruptable by forces of nature or forces of evil.