What We Can Learn from the Electrification of Rural America

Nearly twenty years ago, I lived in a rural village in Zambia. The sunset dropped like a curtain because the community lacked electricity. A few candles flickered inside mud-brick houses. At night, work stopped. Human activity revolved around the cycles of sun and fire.

For the first time in my life, electricity infrastructure was not an abstraction but a line separating modernity and opportunity from one constrained by darkness and poverty. I left Zambia understanding that electricity is not just a utility but the foundation of freedom and prosperity in the modern world. 

I’ve never taken this discovery for granted or stopped asking why we still tolerate the uneven distribution of electricity access across nations and regions. I later learned how the United States faced a similar problem less than a century ago, which was solved through cooperative governance and long-term investment.

The America That Once Lived in the Dark

In the early 1930s, nearly 90% of urban households in the United States had electricity. Factories hummed, cities glowed and America was modernizing into an industrial superpower. 

Yet more than a quarter of Americans living in rural areas remained largely without light, refrigeration, motors or modern machinery. As late as 1934, only about 10% of U.S. farms had electricity. It was not a technology problem. It was a financing and governance problem. Meanwhile, over 90% of rural farms in Germany, France and Japan were electrified.

Private utilities reasonably argued that from a shareholder perspective, low population density and long distances made rural electrification uneconomic. At the time, a 2300-volt distribution system was used in cities. This relatively low voltage could be carried only about 4 miles before the voltage drop became unacceptable. Miles of wire for a handful of customers could not be justified by private investors. 

America had split into two economies, with one electrified and the other dependent on kerosene lamps, hand pumps and animal power. Rural communities were locked into lower productivity and higher costs while rural youth left the countryside in search of work.

The Rural Electrification Administration 

In 1935, President Franklin Roosevelt created the Rural Electrification Administration (REA), which provided long-term, low-interest public loans to build energy infrastructure where private capital could not or would not go. 

The REA did not nationalize electricity. Instead, it catalyzed locally governed nonprofit, member-owned utilities with citizen elected boards that reinvested surplus resources into community electricity systems rather than distributing dividends to shareholders.

The goal for this policy was to have rates reflect the true physical cost unhindered by the fluctuations caused by market speculation. The federal government standardized designs, helped train engineers and lineworkers and ensured equipment could be procured at scale. 

REA crews traveled through the American countryside, bringing teams of electricians who added wiring to houses and barns to utilize the newly available power provided by the line crews. REA cooperatives used a 6900-volt distribution network, which could support much longer runs of up to 40 miles. 

Within two decades, the rural electrification rate exceeded 95%. The effort reshaped the nation by raising agricultural productivity, enabling food refrigeration, attracting other industry, modernizing homes and creating a more unified energy system.

Today, nearly 900 rural electric cooperatives serve 42 million Americans and operate in 56% of U.S. land area. They own and manage thousands of miles of transmission lines, generation assets including nuclear and hydro, and increasingly, broadband networks. The REA is one of the most successful public-private-community collaborations in American history.

Why This Model Matters Again

We stand in a similar moment today. The energy system is under strain from rising demand, new industry and data center growth. Transmission capacity is insufficient. Market structures reward short-term returns over long-term reliability.

This is the same dilemma rural America faced in the 1930s, only scaled to a global, digital economy. Private capital remains essential but it cannot alone finance multi-decade infrastructure at the speed and scope required. 

The REA has shown that when society requires universal access to a foundational resource, public credit, cooperative ownership and long-term planning are not ideological choices but operational necessities.

The Case for a Modern REA — and Global Expansion

A twenty-first-century electrification agenda should borrow from what worked:

Challenge	Solution Inspired by REA
Long-payback energy infrastructure	Long-term public credit and loan guarantees
Volatile energy markets	Cooperative ownership and local governance
Transmission constraints	Regional planning and standardized engineering
Community trust and siting issues	Local participation and member ownership
Workforce shortages	Training pipelines and federal-cooperative partnerships

Some rural cooperatives are already exploring nuclear and distributed energy systems. With long-term, low-interest government financing, the cooperative model provides a blueprint for energy abundance and decentralized development.

Energy Cooperatives as a Global Development Model

In Africa, Asia and Latin America, millions of people live in communities similar to the one where I once stayed in Zambia. The development conversation often oscillates between large-scale utility programs driven by external capital and small solar systems marketed as “good enough” for the poor.

Neither model builds the backbone of a modern economy, requiring industrial loads, manufacturing bases, cold chains and digital infrastructure.

A cooperative electrification framework offers something different:

• Community control

• National coordination

• Long-term financing

• Local accountability

• Industrial-scale power capability

• Economic self-determination

It avoids the trap of donor-driven dependency and the limitations of profit-maximizing concession models. It mirrors what lifted American agriculture, industry and public health in the mid-twentieth century. 

If we are serious about global development and not just lighting a bulb but powering a factory, a school, a hospital and a digital internet infrastructure, then the REA cooperative model is a blueprint.

A New Global Electrification Mission

Imagine a modern REA for the world, not driven by charity but by strategic partnership with:

• U.S. and allied development banks issuing concessional 30- to 50-year infrastructure credit

• Training and exchange programs for engineers, linemen and energy planners

• Cooperative utilities partnering across borders

• A global network of community-owned utilities deploying distributed nuclear power and advanced grid systems

• National-scale planning combined with local democratic ownership

What rural America achieved in the 1930s can be scaled internationally over the next twenty years.

Light and Freedom

The night in rural Zambia stays with me. It was peaceful and beautiful but also a paradigm of unrealized potential. Electrification is not merely about watts and wires but about the potential opportunity costs of watching the future pass by.

America once stood in that darkness. It solved the problem through democratic cooperation, public purpose and national ambition. The blueprint exists. The need is urgent. And the light, once turned on, liberates future generations.

Follow the conversation at https://politicaleconomyproject.substack.com.