A better model would be a new kind of utility—run democratically, by the communities that use them, as co-ops or as a “commons,” as author and activist David Bollier and others have outlined.18 This kind of structure would enable citizens to demand far more from their energy companies than they are able to now—for example, that they direct their profits away from new fossil fuel exploration and obscene executive compensation and shareholder returns and into building the network of complementary renewables that we now know has the potential to power our economies in our lifetimes.
