The statement from India and other nations is clear: “This is no country for radical environmentalism.” And it is not just India. China has always maintained its sovereign rights for development, and the new Brazilian government is moving towards reclaiming its energy independence.
Mark Scialla, a freelance journalist based in the United States, was deported from India two weeks ago for reportedly documenting a controversial case surrounding the operations of a copper smelting factory.
So why are countries like India becoming increasingly wary of foreign elements and their growing involvement in domestic developmental issues?
The news of the journalist’s deportation did not come as a surprise to many here in India, as we are aware of our government’s intention to weed out foreign nonprofits and journalists who seek to sabotage developmental projects.
…“I am not claiming any great originality for the Lake County Experiment [on rural electrification in 1910]. If I had not hit upon it somebody else would have, but it is rather an interesting sidelight that even the opponents of private ownership, such as the Tennessee Valley Authority, by their work have put the stamp of approval on such matters….”
– Samuel Insull, The Memoirs of Samuel Insull (1934), p. 97.
[Ed. note: This post is taken from the author’s Edison to Enron (2011), chapter 3, pp. 105–108]
“The way Insull’s utility managed Chicago’s power load,” noted one technological historian, “is comparable to the historic managerial contributions made by railway men in the nineteenth century and is as interesting as the widely publicized managerial concepts and policies of John D. Rockefeller and Henry Ford.” But beyond the city and the suburbs lay another frontier for the synergistic generation/distribution, adding yet more heft to Insull’s “principle of concentration” and the virtuous cycle of more sales and lower rates.
…“The private sector’s push for rural electrification would be forgotten as electrifying the countryside became a political issue during the New Deal, specifically with the creation of the Rural Electrification Administration in 1935.”
– Robert Bradley, Edison to Enron: Energy Markets and Political Strategies (2011), p. 165.
“Next to their ability to pump water mechanistically, small wind turbines are best known for their ability to generate power at remote homesteads…. During the 1930s, when only 10% of U.S. farms were served by central-station power, literally hundreds of thousands of [“home light plants”] were in use on the Great Plains…. [This industry] collapsed quickly after the introduction of electricity by the Rural Electrification Administration during the 1930s.”
– Paul Gipe. Wind Energy Comes of Age (1995), pp. 125, 131.
The New Deal’s policies toward oil and coal in the 1933–39 era were hardly succeeded from anyone’s perspective.
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