Overview
The Grid by Gretchen Bakke is an informative analysis of America’s aging energy grid, the history of electricity, and new green technologies that we need to adopt to combat climate change. America’s energy grid, the largest machine in the world, is simply not adept at meeting the energy demands of the 21st Century.
Bakke covers the history of the grid, focusing primarily on the technological and political facets. She discusses how government regulation (utilities are “natural” monopolies) prevented innovation, the energy crisis in the 1970s and President Carter’s “fireside chats,” and how Thomas Edison did not, in fact, create the lightbulb. She also discusses, in depth, how squirrels and tree limbs are the greatest threat our grid faces. When examining our energy future, Bakke says the new logic of “little, flexible, fast, adaptive, local” is the polar opposite of the way things have been until now.
To attain a greener future, we need new methods of energy production, transportation, and storage. This future’s technologies will be more wireless (possibly), portable, integrated, and “invisible.” It will take innovation and bipartisan legislation to achieve this future, but we can get there.
Recommendation
While The Grid is informative, I cannot recommend it. Frankly, it was boring. I was hoping it would be more exciting, but it continued to underwhelm. If you are *really* interested in, well, the energy grid, this book is for you. Otherwise, the occasional news report on energy in America (or a Tesla press release) should suit your needs.
Get your copy of The Grid: The Fraying Wires Between Americans and Our Energy Future
