Book notes: The Grid

By Gretchen Bakke, Ph.D.

I read this in my quest to know more about our electric grid.

Scoring:

• Axe for the frozen sea: 8/10.
• Page count: 294, effective page count: about that.

The book opened with the history of the electric grid in the USA. It started off as many small competing grids without standardized voltages so they couldn’t interconnect. Utilities noticed they could band together to supply power to each other in a mutually beneficial way so they didn’t have to build more infrastructure, resulting in a few large connected grids in the USA now. The system grew organically over time and is fragile.

A big cause of power failures in the USA is tree branches and small animals like squirrels.

Power utilities were monopolies until the Energy Policy Act of 1992 had a sneaky provision that required utilities to allow others to sell power on their grid at the same price they would have charged to produce it themselves. It didn’t have an immediate effect at the time but ultimately allowed all of the “green” energy we have on the grid today.

The book was published in 2016 and was impressed with how much solar and wind had come online even by that time.

I enjoyed the chapter about alternative power sources and “microgrids”, especially the research done by the military to transform food and human waste into portable power stations. I wonder if residential power will ever get there?

Diesel generators aren’t a great solution. There isn’t any fuel available during an emergency.

The author’s rhetoric was a touch dramatic for my taste but I definitely recommend this book to anyone wanting to know more about the electric grid.

I waited too long between when I finished this book and wrote up my notes… remember to do write up quicker next time or maybe jot a note or 2 per chapter as I go.