Rural Power: Community-Scaled Renewable Energy and Rural Economic Development
The content that follows was originally published on the Institute for Local Self-Reliance website at http://www.ilsr.org/rural-power-communityscaled-renewable-energy-and-rural-economic-development/This August 2008 report by David Morris and John Farrell was sponsored by the Ford Foundation. The next 20 years could generate as much as $1 trillion in new renewable energy investment in rural America. The report is a policy roadmap for states and the federal government that would redesignpolicies to encourage a highly decentralized and dispersed renewable energy industry that is significantly locally owned. Doing so would multiply the number of rural areas that benefit from burgeoning renewable energy industries, and would create a sustainable asset whose wealth and revenue will largely remain in revived local communities and regions.
