bring in chopped wood from the back porch and get the fire going. They had to keep it going throughout the day. There were ashes to haul every day, and a stovepipe to clean. When they moved into a retirement townhouse with central electric heating, my Grammy was ecstatic. By all of the accounts I've read, that's how most of our ancestors responded to the new convenience of centralized energy generation. If the energy is made by someone else, all you have to do is sit back and enjoy the benefits. Yet you do lose a certain amount of control. If my Grandpa's stove burned through all of the wood he'd put in it, he could go chop some more wood. If I wake up some morning and my gas or electric service isn't operating, then I have to put in a call to the utility and find someplace more comfortable to spend my day. Centralizing generation was a lot like adopting the republic as a form of government, as opposed to a direct democracy. Most of us don't want to sit through all of the meetings, speeches, and negotiations necessary to run a country. We'd much prefer the convenience of electing representatives to do that job for us. Sooner or later, though, we find out that the representatives don't always make the same choices we would have made in their shoes. It doesn't mean the republic is bad. It simply means that there's always a price for convenience, and