A revelatory look at our national power grid--how it developed, its current flaws, and how it must be completely reimagined for our fast-approaching energy future.
Gretchen Bakke holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in Cultural Anthropology. Her work focuses on the chaos and creativity that emerges during social, cultural, and technological transitions. For the past decade she has been researching and writing about the changing culture of electricity in the United States. She is a former fellow in Wesleyan University’s Science in Society Program, a former Fulbright fellow, and is currently an assistant professor of anthropology at McGill University. Born in Portland, Oregon, Bakke lives in Montreal.
The Grid is a lucid and thought-provoking book.
*Wall Street Journal*
This book, about our aging electrical grid, fits in one of my
favorite genres: 'Books About Mundane Stuff That Are Actually
Fascinating.' . . . even if you have never given a moment's thought
to how electricity reaches your outlets, I think this book would
convince you that the electrical grid is one of the greatest
engineering wonders of the modern world. I think you would also
come to see why modernizing the grid is so complex and so critical
for building our clean-energy future.
*Bill Gates, "My Favorite Books of 2016"*
Bakke describes the grid as far more than towers and wires . . .
She leads readers through a history of the grid and a maze of
financial, legal, regulatory, and environmental considerations with
sprightly good humor . . . Finally, Bakke sketches a possible
design of the ‘intelligent grid’ of the future . . . A lively
analysis.
*Kirkus Reviews*
Hopefully, Bakke’s startling exposé revealing how electricity
sloshes around the country across a precarious grid will be a
wake-up call.
*Booklist*
Gretchen Bakke shows that everything is, indeed, connected. If we
want a cleaner energy future, we're going to need a smarter
grid.
*Elizabeth Kolbert, author of THE SIXTH EXTINCTION*
A thriller for nerds!
*Louis Beaumier, Executive Director for Trottier Energy
Institute*
A remarkable achievement. Bakke deftly shows us how a system most
of us are happy to ignore--the electrical grid--is both inseparable
from everything we think of as civilization and on the verge of
complete failure.
*Paul Roberts, author of THE END OF OIL and THE IMPULSE
SOCIETY*
If you want to keep your lights on, read The Grid. This is a smart,
deeply reported, poetic book about how electricity moves through
our lives (and why it sometimes doesn’t). It's a journey through
the nervous system of the modern world, one with profound
implications for climate change, national security, and ensuring
America’s well-lit future.
*contributing editor Rolling Stone, author of BIG COAL*
Gretchen Bakke dives deep into the history of the electric power
grid . . . The Grid is full of rich detail across a wide range of
energy-related topics.
*Science*
The revolution that impacts every American may not be televised,
but, thanks to Gretchen Bakke, it is being written, and written in
an extraordinary way. This book tells the compelling story of the
invention that has powered the American economy unlike any other,
and which was named by the National Academy of Engineering as the
greatest engineering achievement of the 20th century. What will our
future become as we transform it?
*Rye Barcott, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Double Time
Capital, a clean energy investment firm*
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