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Picture a pendulum swinging from 1991 to 2041, with the midpoint being 2016. What was the past like? What will the future be like?

The past had no internet, no cell phones, no wireless communication, no video cameras, no 3-D movies. There were slide rules and fax machines. It is a world we can barely remember. So how can we go the other way and plan for a future we haven’t yet seen?

Each year in the United States, there are about 5 million car crashes, killing more than 30,000 people — including 5,000 pedestrians — and injuring over 2 million people. The three most common objects that are crashed into, besides cars, are trees, utility poles and traffic barriers. There are nearly 90 million utility poles lining highways.

Let’s make a few assumptions. First, in 2041 all cars will be driverless, and there will be no utility poles to hit.

Furthermore, there will be no centralized generators, no gas stations and no use of coal, natural gas or petroleum. No Middle East oil wars. No spills and no Fukushimas.

The 2016 fad of teachers and students having virtual meetings by interacting thru interactive video classrooms will have advanced to the point where there are much more sophisticated virtual classrooms. People will see and talk to each other, but there will be no real classrooms, no class buildings to cool and no student rush hours clogging the highways.

This will expand to work-at-home by video and computer interfaces. No more hiring baby-sitters. No more latchkey kids.

All buildings will be smart, with energy management systems that regulate heat, light and electricity efficiently, vastly cutting down on the energy needs of each room. Buildings will have solar roof panels and solar glazing on windows and walls to power the buildings. Solar panels under sidewalks and driveways that melt snow without the need to shovel it.

During unusual weather patterns, driverless vehicles will stop by at night and recharge batteries in buildings.

This revolution starts in areas with high electric rates, abundant renewable energy resources and poor wireless connections. Places like Puna and Molokai.

Cell phone apps will determine energy supply and demand. Energy service companies — the replacement of public utilities — will maintain systems, often via wireless communications.

Super high speed internet will be universally available.

The place where this revolution starts is in areas with high electric rates, abundant renewable energy resources and poor wireless connections. Places like Puna and Molokai.

The one drawback — identified in 2016 — is that each stand-alone facility has to oversize its energy collection systems and thus some of it is wasted.

In 2016, public-private-partnerships, fueled by taxpayer funds and utility backing, financed one-view consultants-inside-silos, who came up with the winning solution, which required vast amounts of funds to hire more consultants and experts. The solution: the Smart Grid, reliant upon research supporting Big Electricity, Big Telecommunications, Big Data, Centralized Management and the Big Idea that the energy sector was immune to teenage hackers. Big mistake!

According to :

• “64 percent of registered U.S. voters believe the upcoming presidential campaign will suffer a cybersecurity incident.”
• “According to research from The Wall Street Journal, more than 60 countries have or are developing tools for computer espionage and attacks, and 29 countries now have formal military or intelligence units dedicated to cyber efforts.”
• “The U.S. Director of National Intelligence ranks cybercrime as the No. 1 national security threat, ahead of terrorism, espionage and weapons of mass destruction.”

Somehow, the business-as-usual crowds missed the enormous benefits of going gridless and also failed to see the enormous risk of more and more centralization. Somehow hackers damaged the systems. For some reason the thinkers-inside-boxes felt they were entitled to stranded cost recovery.