NIMBY-proof energy planning

To paraphrase Gandhi: ‘everyone wants sustainable, reliable power, but nobody wants a power station in their backyard’.

Whether the energy source is nuclear, coal or wind power, everyone acknowledges the need for power stations, but no-one wants one in *their* neighbourhood. The obvious answer came to me a few years back. All we have to do is devolve energy planning to a very local level. This would mean that each small community (say < 1000 households) could choose between: -a pleasant neighbourhood with a net import of energy, and higher bills -a clean but ‘unsightly’ power source such as wind
-a worrying but efficient power source such as nuclear (and income from the excess energy generated)

And so on. This would encourage people to grapple with the infamous NIMBY hurdle. What if no community wanted power generation local to them? Then energy costs would rise to the point where it would become deeply attractive for some communities to generate on a larger scale.

I see from National Geographic that Toshiba are designing small nuclear reactors which might be deployed in this way in Alaska. I knew someone else would have thought of this!