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The grid : the fraying wires between Americans and our energy future

Title: The grid : the fraying wires between Americans and our energy future / Gretchen Bakke.
Author: Bakke, Gretchen Anna
Publication: New York : Bloomsbury USA, 2016.
Supplementary Content: Cover image

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Schwarzman Building to submit a request in person.	Text	Use in library	JFE 16-11949	Schwarzman Building - Main Reading Room 315

Details

Description

pages cm

Summary

"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 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perceptive, and deeply researched fashion, cultural anthropologist Gretchen Bakke uses the history of an increasingly outdated infrastructure to show how the United States has gone from seemingly infinite technological prowess to a land of structural instability.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, centralization and standardization 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 on line, 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"--

Subject

Call Number

JFE 16-11949

ISBN

9781608196104
1608196100

LCCN

2016001376

OCLC

2016001376

Author

Bakke, Gretchen Anna, author.

Title

The grid : the fraying wires between Americans and our energy future / Gretchen Bakke.

Publisher

New York : Bloomsbury USA, 2016.

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Connect to:

Cover image

Research Call Number

JFE 16-11949

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