The Grid Book Summary - The Grid Book explained in key points

The Grid summary

Name: The Grid
Rating: 4.3 (123 reviews)
Author: Gretchen Bakke

Gretchen Bakke

The Fraying Wires Between Americans and Our Energy Future

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4.3 (123 ratings)

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What is The Grid about?

The Grid (2016) is about the enormous infrastructure that keeps the United States powered up. These blinks tell the story of how the electric grid came into being, how it has evolved over centuries and what challenges it poses today.

About the Author

Gretchen Bakke is a cultural anthropologist with a PhD from the University of Chicago. She is currently an assistant professor of anthropology at McGill University in Montreal, Canada and is the author of the book Anthropology of the Arts.

Table of Contents

Key idea 1 of 9

The first electric grid, launched in the 1870s, took the world by storm.

Of all human discoveries, electricity has surely had one of the most profound impacts on how we live.

After all, replacing candles and gas-fueled lamps with electric light could, for all intents and purposes, make the day longer, enabling for example companies to do business longer.

And that’s precisely what happened when the first electric grids came online in the 1870s.

The spark that ignited this major transformation came in 1871, when Father Joseph Neri, a professor at Saint Ignatius College in San Francisco, found a way to use battery-powered electricity to power a light in his window.

Word of his invention spread rapidly and, by 1879, San Francisco had its own lighting grid comprising two dynamos that were powered by a steam engine. It illuminated a mere 20 lamps, but it was a grid nonetheless. From there, an electric grid running on water-driven dynamos was installed in the Sierra Nevada gold mines of California, and thousands of electric lights came into operation.

But more change was soon to follow. These early grids were revolutionized in the early 1880s by the parallel circuit, invented by Thomas Edison. Before Edison’s invention, grids were linked in a series, meaning that if one bulb went out, the entire system would go down because electricity couldn’t pass through the malfunctioning bulb.

Edison’s contribution was to discover that electric currents can take all available paths, even if one is much longer than the other. As a result, people could suddenly connect bulbs in parallel, avoiding a system-wide blackout due to one bad bulb.

By 1892, streetlights wired in parallel circuits began to proliferate, and the New York Times hung dozens of parallel-strung light bulbs around its offices.

Electric light resulted in an abundance of local power grids, but the invention of AC enabled larger ones too.

So, the invention of the parallel circuit was a game-changer, but there was still no major grid to connect to. Several smaller entities owned their own private power plants and left cities entangled in an endless web of wires.

For instance, major metropolitan areas like New York City had wildly woven webs of wires dangling from rooftops and street poles. In some neighborhoods, the tangle of wires had gotten so bad that you could barely see the sky.

Electricity was ripe for monopolization, but the nature of the product complicated this task.

By the year 1902, 815 municipal electricity companies had cropped up across the United States; by 1907, that number had grown to over 1,000.

Historically, however, it was a time of monopolies, such as John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Trust, which, having been founded in 1882, had come to dominate 90 percent of global oil production just 25 years later. Or consider US Steel, American Tobacco and AT&T, all of which had established monopolies in their respective industries.

Insull overcame roadblocks and built a thriving company before joining forces with others.

So, Insull had a storage problem. To overcome it, he realized he needed to build a customer base that collectively used electricity around the clock so that all the power his plants generated would be put to good use.

To attract a variety of customers, including manufacturers, homeowners and transportation companies, Insull slashed his prices. The result was a dramatic uptick in customers, and he was soon selling electricity to several hundred thousand people. Compared to the 5,000 customers he had in 1892, this was a huge leap forward toward his dream of monopolization.

Problems with efficiency and the supply of oil had a major impact on the American electricity industry.

Do you think a coal-powered power plant turns 100 percent of the coal energy it burns into electricity? Not even close.

In 1892, the average power plant operated at a measly two-percent efficiency rate. This rate gradually rose to 40 percent by 1940, and the coal tycoons of the day assumed it would keep going up and up.

By the 1970s, mounting awareness of energy conservation led to legislative action and the erosion of electricity monopolies.

The oil embargo may have caused a spike in electricity prices, but it also drastically increased public awareness about energy conservation. This marked a major shift since the electric companies had always promoted ever-greater consumption to allow for increased production, lower prices and bigger plants.

Their influence in this respect had a major impact on households, too, which were stocked with all manner of appliances from refrigerators to air conditioners. But thanks to the oil embargo, people were becoming aware of how much energy these household conveniences used and were quickly learning how to conserve.

Even minor problems on the grid can cause major disasters, and utility companies are under strain.

Enough about the past; the present day poses some pressing problems too since the grid, which expanded exponentially in the twentieth century, is growing old.

Its aging and cumbersome infrastructure means that even minor malfunctions can have swift and sweeping consequences. Blackouts are a good example, as they can have potentially grave repercussions.

New technology could be used to upgrade the grid, but consumers have concerns.

Have you ever heard of a smart grid? This upgraded infrastructure does everything the electric grids of the past could, but utilizes digital technology to improve efficiency, for example by better monitoring consumption.

It sounds great, but unfortunately, many Americans are troubled by the idea, because it strikes them as a form of surveillance.

Bad weather has sparked the desire for more sturdy grids, and going smaller could be the answer.

Do you remember when Hurricane Sandy decimated the East Coast of the United States in 2012? This colossal storm affected close to 50 million people, restricting or cutting off their access to clean water, public transit and power.

For many, it was a wake-up call that the way energy is produced today needs to be reconsidered. As a result, there are now many more people, politicians included, who are advocating for resilience.

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The Grid summary

Listen to the first key idea

What is The Grid about?

About the Author

The first electric grid, launched in the 1870s, took the world by storm.

Electric light resulted in an abundance of local power grids, but the invention of AC enabled larger ones too.

Electricity was ripe for monopolization, but the nature of the product complicated this task.

Insull overcame roadblocks and built a thriving company before joining forces with others.

Problems with efficiency and the supply of oil had a major impact on the American electricity industry.

By the 1970s, mounting awareness of energy conservation led to legislative action and the erosion of electricity monopolies.

Even minor problems on the grid can cause major disasters, and utility companies are under strain.

New technology could be used to upgrade the grid, but consumers have concerns.

Bad weather has sparked the desire for more sturdy grids, and going smaller could be the answer.

Key ideas in The Grid

The first electric grid, launched in the 1870s, took the world by storm.

Electric light resulted in an abundance of local power grids, but the invention of AC enabled larger ones too.

Electricity was ripe for monopolization, but the nature of the product complicated this task.

Insull overcame roadblocks and built a thriving company before joining forces with others.

Problems with efficiency and the supply of oil had a major impact on the American electricity industry.

By the 1970s, mounting awareness of energy conservation led to legislative action and the erosion of electricity monopolies.

Even minor problems on the grid can cause major disasters, and utility companies are under strain.

New technology could be used to upgrade the grid, but consumers have concerns.

Bad weather has sparked the desire for more sturdy grids, and going smaller could be the answer.

Who should read The Grid

Categories with The Grid

Books like The Grid

What our members say

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