A Page From History
by Handsome Matt
I just finished an article from BusinessWeek that highlighted what Thomas Edison did in addition to inventing the light bulb. It’s on our tumblr page, and I recommend reading it.
The basic idea is this: In addition to figuring out the lightbulb, Edison went one step further: He invented the grid, the generators, the power plants. Basically he invented the entire power generation and delivery industries.
By doing this, good ol Tommy Edison, moved the lightbulb from a curiosity to a potential life changer.
The last things he did were to carefully introduce the lightbulb into a controlled market, and he also won favorable government regulation.
Right now we’ve got all these great breakthroughs that are nothing more than oddities. Like the solar powered car for example. Yet there’s no push to develop the necessary infrastructure to transition these breakthroughs into everyday successes.
Lets stop focusing on the next big breakthrough and start figuring out how to put the pieces we have together into a whole system that works.
Conservance 
Agreed. This might be another whole can of beans, but I think Obama’s plan to expand the grid is a start in this regard – an infrastructure for handling the new energy sources. I just hope these sources, ie, wind and solar are being adequately funded and built.
Judging by your name/email this was a spam account. However, this is the first spam comment that actually engaged the post at hand.
The problem with the energy package is that it’s top down and to political. Any real and necessary changes are going to be watered down by lobbyists. If we had a company or person work hard and build up into the four necessary areas it would have a much better chance of being implemented in its best form.
Shai Agassi is doing that as we speak with Better Place. I don’t like electric cars, but I’d buy a Better Place electric car.
If you’re a spammer, your boss needs to give you raise!
LOL, admittedly, I do plan to use my wordpress account for business and pleasure. I truly like your blog, however. Keep it up! Here’s to going gree… err, I mean doing the smart thing.
Keep up the good work, I like your writing.
What Edison also did, though, was use every dirty trick in the book to make DC power, instead of Nikola Tesla’s (AKA David Bowie’s) AC power, the system of choice. His success in doing this probably set the US power grid back for 30 years, because it’s usually easier to transmit AC. I get your point, but Edison may not be the greatest example. Maybe even a cautionary tale: we need to take these big leaps with new technologies definitely, but we should choose wisely.