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How the Lights Stay On

How the Electric Grid Really Works

Why the electric grid is the most astonishing machine you never think about — power made and used in the very same instant, the blackouts that taught us how it works (Ohio 2003, Texas 2021), the rise of solar, wind, batteries and nuclear, and the hard trilemma of keeping the lights cheap, clean, and always on.

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18chapters
31pages
43kwords

Contents

  1. Author’s Note
  2. The Blink
  3. The Juggling Act
  4. The Long Road
  5. Seven Minutes in Ohio
  6. The Last Hundred Feet
  7. The Sun Doesn’t Ask Permission
  8. Catching Lightning in a Bottle
  9. The Frozen Texan
  10. The Bare Roof
  11. The Atom Comes Back
  12. The Grid That Has to Grow
  13. The Grid Grows a Brain
  14. The Order of Operations
  15. The Trilemma
  16. The Lights in Shanghai
  17. The People Who Watch the Grid
  18. The Grid You’ll Build