New York State was once the center of an epic battle between two competing ideas.

The saga took place at the end of the nineteenth century and began with the misguided brilliance of Thomas Alva Edison. The challenger was a much younger, but equally brilliant, upstart named Nikolas Tesla. Fortunately for us, Tesla was not thwarted at the time, despite every attempt by the established power to do so.

The great debate was over the way in which electric power would be delivered. While this choice seems esoteric now, it was critical then. It helped cement Buffalo as an industrial and innovation powerhouse more than a century ago. And, it has the opportunity to transform this region once again.

When electricity was first generated and harnessed, the natural and most simple way to generate it was through direct current (DC). In direct current, electrons travel down a wire in one direction to the equipment in our homes and factories and then back to the source by way of a return wire. This current of electrons is much like the flow of water, in one steady direction. This solution was simple in concept, as were most all of Edison's insights.

However, keeping it simple is not always the best solution.

Tesla came up with a few innovations. First, he devised a way in which the current could undulate down the wire, kind of like vibrating a taut wire on one end and watching the wave propagate to the other end.

To generate this undulating (alternating, or AC) current, Tesla also had to invent a generator that gradually but very rapidly flipped the current from a positive to a negative pole, and vice-versa, 120 times a second, to generate 60 cycle AC.

Finally, while this alternating current had no problem powering Edison's light bulbs, it could not run early motors. So, Tesla had to invent a motor that would synchronize with the alternating electric current. As a bonus, the motor could hold the very precise 1,800 or 3,600 rpm speed to which we have now grown accustomed.

Okay, you might be saying by now that this is far too much information and not at all relevant to our region. But, wait, there is more!

Edison was quite jealous of Tesla's inventions — so jealous that he had fired the upstart inventor early in his career. He was particularly resentful of one feature of Tesla's concept. Tesla discovered that one could easily transform the pressure (or voltage) of his alternating current through another invention called, logically enough, a transformer. By upping the voltage, Tesla could reduce the number of electrons traveling down the wire. In essence, if he could push them harder through a wire, he would have to push fewer through the wire.

And that made all the difference.

You see, Edison could not easily adjust the voltage of his direct current. To ensure that too much pressure did not enter a house, he had to send his electricity down the wires at relatively low voltage but high current. It turned out that his approach was very wasteful and consumed more electric power than we would actually receive in our homes by the need to heat up the wires.

Alternatively, Tesla raised the voltage before transmission, sent less current but with more voltage to neighborhoods and then used transformers to lower the voltage before it entered a home. In doing so, he managed to save more energy for the planet than any other person in history. He remains our greatest unheralded conservationist.

So, by now, the score is Tesla 5, Edison 0. Edison was so bitter that he refused to let Tesla use Edison bulbs when Tesla won the contract to light The Chicago World's Fair in 1893. Like any entrepreneur when faced with a roadblock, Tesla just invented his way around it and came up with his own light-bulb design. And, it was Buffalo that was the center of power generation and invention at that time.

However, Edison's time has now come and, once again, we are on the forefront of the development of a new, modern and energy-efficient electric grid.

A company is now resurrecting Edison, right here in the North Country. Transmission Developers Inc. is proposing to transport electricity from Quebec to New York State using Edison's preferred direct-current method. They can succeed where Edison failed because we have long since figured out how to cheaply convert direct current to alternating current, raise its voltage and convert it back to direct current. We can also do the reverse. As a consequence, we can transform direct current to any voltage we want, just as we have always been able to do with alternating current.

Transmission Developers Inc. are proposing to do just that — and bury their wires in our river beds and lakes, right through the Champlain Valley. They can accomplish this with direct current because direct current is not prone to having electrical energy escape from the wires. This leakage of voltage from alternating current wires, along with something called the skin effect that makes wires a bit less efficient in transporting alternating current, means that Transmission Developers Inc. can much more safely transport power, even in trenches buried in rivers and lakes, and with much lower losses.

As a consequence, the solution is much more "green" because it conserves power and it does not require tracts of land to be devoted to unattractive power poles.

This technology is not new. However, recent innovations have made it much more affordable and economical. Because it is new and unfamiliar, it may meet with some sort of social resistance, even if it dramatically reduces electrical resistance. However, with the ability to provide reliable and green hydroelectric power to a couple million homes, and save on countless coal power plants, I hope the innovators can convince any detractors. After all, conservation is everybody's business.

Colin Read is a professor of economics and finance and former dean of the School of Business and Economics at SUNY Plattsburgh. His fifth book, "The Rise and Fall of an Economic Empire," will be published by MacMillan Palgrave in September. He also runs an economic and business consulting company, and can be reached through his website www.economicinsights.net.