The Energy Policy Act separated electricity generation by law from electricity transmission and distribution (a divorce formalized by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s Order 888 issued in 1996). In effect this means that private companies can build condensed solar power plants wherever the sun shines hottest, individual home owners can mount solar panels on anything that doesn’t move, and multinational conglomerates, or farmers, can install wind farms wherever the wind blows most ferociously—as well they should, for these are the sites that are most efficient when it come to the
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