Climate catastrophe, future energy, and
A massive transformation of 21st century electrical infrastructure!

Currently, we do not have an electricity supply system, a 'grid', that can use renewable energy.
That's because the 20th-century grid was built around oil, coal, plutonium, and natural gas, not variable power sources like wind and solar.
And if there is no grid, there is no electricity.
Without electricity, there are no smartphones, no air conditioning, and no online classes.
Cryptocurrencies will naturally disappear, and factories, police, military, and hospitals will be at risk.
So, unless we abandon the electricity that sustains modern society, we will ultimately have to change the grid, and indeed, the grid is rapidly changing.

"The Grid" reveals the challenges facing today's grids, including the rise of renewable energy generation and demand, the expansion of distributed power sources, and the decentralization of the electricity industry. It also specifically predicts where and how the 21st-century electricity infrastructure revolution and the resulting tectonic shifts in technology and industry will occur.

Energy is a hot topic these days.
…it is true that changing energy sources can reduce oil spills, explosions, man-made earthquakes, and mine collapses (which often occur with devastating consequences, often without warning or mercy).
To reduce the risk of extreme storms and intense blizzards, and to manage rising tides and melting ice caps, we must transform our electricity supply systems to more sustainable forms.
Today, changing the way energy is created and used is more important than ever.
---From "Entering"

A crucial problem is that the grid is out of sight of these massive renewable energy expansion plans.
Many people treat the grid as if it doesn't even exist.
In other words, you and I, state legislators, federal legislators, entrepreneurs, startup founders, and climate change experts—we all dream big, crank our coffee machines, snap beautiful sunset photos, and envision the future, but we're setting inflated goals for the future while ignoring the fact that to realize all that we envision, we'll have to accomplish the significant task of adapting the technological monument that is the grid.
As it has been in the past, the grid will exist in the future.
It is time to pay attention to this fact, which is obvious but has been briefly forgotten by everyone.
Unless we understand the incredible complexity of this machine and can change it, we will never be able to move toward a future where we can brighten our days and nights, reduce extreme weather events, or successfully limit global heating.
---From "Entering"

Now is the time for a new perspective on the grid, a reinvention of the entire system.
Parts of the grid will have to be rebuilt.
Even if wind and solar aren't introduced on a large scale, it will happen eventually.
Renewable energy has only accelerated the realization that the grid needs to change.
To borrow a sentence from an article in the Los Angeles Times, “The problem is that renewable energy puts unprecedented strain on a grid designed in the last century.”
---From "Chapter 1, At the Crossroads Where the Wind Blows"

In 1956, the Niagara Falls Power Plant disappeared when the edge of the cliff on which it stood collapsed.
The accident was one of the largest industrial accidents in the United States to that time.
Let's hear the story of John Haney, who worked as a security guard at the power plant at the time.
“Water was flowing back into the facility.
I remember going to great lengths to keep the generator from getting wet, because if water got on it it would be a disaster.
The power plant building appears to have been under tremendous pressure.
The window facing the river shattered with a loud bang, and the concrete floor was completely warped, so I had to jump across it.
At that moment, the wall facing the waterfall collapsed.
I moved towards the elevator.
“Water and rocks were falling into the bay in front of the power plant.”
---From "Chapter 2: When the Grid Got the Wire"

Today, renewable energy generation capacity accounts for about 13% of the total installed power capacity in the United States.
But that's not the point.
What's truly remarkable is that 53.5% of new renewable energy generation capacity installed in the United States in 2014 was wind or solar.
Texas has set a goal of generating 75% of its electricity from renewable energy by 2050.
For the entire United States, it is expected to reach 20% by 2030.
But the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, which Carter helped found, says that existing technologies alone could provide 80 percent of the electricity needed in the United States from renewable energy.
---From "America in a Cardigan"

Reactive power is something that is more difficult to understand than watts; it is something that does not exist.
But before the Energy Policy Act changed the grid to allow for profitable use, every utility that operated a power plant that produced watts was producing less and less reactive power.
This is because the voltage was maintained with reactive power while the frequency of the current was synchronized.
As the flow of money shifted away from power plants and focused on transporting generated power, after 2000 all operators began to shift away from generating reactive power and focus their efforts on the watt market.
The task of generating reactive power was gradually abandoned.
This growing grid shortage of reactive power is said to have been a key factor in the "Great Northeastern Blackout of August 2003" and a factor in the series of blackouts that occurred in the western U.S. interconnect in the summer of 1996.
---Chapter 5: The Grid on the Brink of Collapse

In no other American city has the gap between customer and utility priorities been greater than in Boulder, Colorado, known as the "smart grid city."
Xcel, a Midwestern utility serving eight states, decided to implement a pilot model of the future grid for communities where residents would be most receptive to cutting-edge technologies to reduce energy consumption.
Boulder and St. Cloud, Minnesota were considered candidates, with Boulder ultimately being selected.
Excel decided not only to install smart meters, but also to thoroughly overhaul the grid.
Excel had an ambitious blueprint for building a truly smart grid.
This new grid will feature smart wires, smart appliances, smart thermostats that communicate with each other, and ultimately, home solar power systems, energy storage devices, and grid-connected electric vehicles.
---From "Chapter 6: Killing Two Birds with One Stone"

Whether in the American Southwest, Northwest, or Hawaii, people are installing solar panels on any south-facing fixed structure: homes, garages, office buildings, carports, vacant lots, even RVs.
The computer services industry that fills Silicon Valley, electricity-dependent businesses, college campuses, military bases, prisons, and even the Connecticut state government are creating microgrids, small grids that can operate in isolation from the grid in the event of a grid-wide crisis.
Like grids, these relatively large microgrids rely on expertise in every area, from planning to construction, installation, and management.
However, for distributed solar power generation, third-party ownership (which means a private company that installs panels on a home, garage, or other facility leases the panels) is the rule.
75% of California's home solar systems are installed this way.

---From "Chapter 7: The Story of Two Storms"