The Grid

The Fraying Wires Between Americans and Our Energy Future

By: Gretchen Bakke

Narrated by: Emily Caudwell

The grid is an accident of history and of culture, in no way intrinsic to how we produce, deliver and consume electrical power. Yet this is the system the United States ended up with, a jerry-built structure now so rickety and near collapse that a strong wind or a hot day can bring it to a grinding halt.

The grid is now under threat from a new source: renewable and variable energy, which puts stress on its logics as much as its components.

In an entertaining, perceptive and deeply researched fashion, cultural anthropologist Gretchen Bakke uses the history of an increasingly outdated infrastructure to show how the United States has gone from seemingly infinite technological prowess to a land of structural instability. She brings humor and a bright eye to contemporary solutions and to the often surprising ways in which these succeed or fail. And the consequences of failure are significant.

Our national electrical grid grew during an era when monopoly, centralisation and standardisation meant strength. Yet as we've increasingly become a nation that caters to local needs, and as a plethora of new renewable energy sources comes online, our massive system is dangerously out of step.

Charting the history of our electrical grid, Bakke helps us see what we all take for granted, shows it as central to our culture and identity as a people and reveals it to be the linchpin in our aspirations for a clean-energy future.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your My Library section along with the audio.

©2016 Gretchen Bakke (P)2016 Audible, Ltd

I didn't want to leave my car!

a very insightful book on how America came to have the power grid we do today and just how difficult it will be to improve and protect.

Excellent Narration And Enjoyable

Gretchen Bakke gives us a peek into the electrical past, present and possible future of the power grid. She shows how most of us are vulnerable to inevitable blackouts, unaware of how really dependent we are on the grid. I'm really happy I bought this Audible book and highly recommend it if you're at all interested in how the electric grid affects us all around the world on a daily basis and have concerns about needed reforms.

Very informative and good technical and business reading

Great way to express the value of what connects us to our electricity.
My only two points of feedback are;
1. Explanation of electricity can use some work to make it more similar to other forms of energy like kinetic, thermal, etc.
2. Wireless as a future is not expanded and the efficiency of the transmission is quite low so it should not be mentioned and kept unexplained.

foundational knowledge

quite interesting history of the oft forgotten infrastructure that is the backbone of our everyday life

Great Read

Made a complex industry understandable and enjoyable to learn about. Highly recommend.
Well written. Excellent conclusion.

a must read

a must read for anyone trying to understand energy in today's society. this book carefully takes you through the history and mechanics of electrical power and looks towards the future for what is possible and what we need to get there. the performance was choppy in several sections, almost as if parts were re read after the fact, but still good overall.

very informative and detailed.

great prospective on the problems with the world's electrical grids put in terms that even non-technical minds can understand and appreciate. highly recommend listening if you want to understand the big picture surrounding how electricity makes its way to your house, and how renewable energy is as much of a challenge to our energy future as it is a necessity.

a valiant effort

the author gives a fresh perspective on systems and infrastructures we take for granted, and the book is well worth a listen for that reason alone. yet the work suffers from the author's failure to understand (and indeed a certainty that no one could fully understand) the technical side of things. many of the glibly stated "facts" and conclusions are simplified and potentially misleading, yet the book does open the readers' eyes to dangers of the path we're on

narrator pronunciation issue

the pronunciation of ‘marin county’ and some other things was distracting. one would think that an editor/producer/someone would catch this before release.

A good subject that author covers well.

Big expansive story which is part history, part science, part sociology, part prediction. I'd like to see it updated to 2021.