The Power Makers, by Maury Klein

In our modern world we get annoyed when we find a dead spot in cell coverage and a call is dropped; merely 80 years ago electricity was only easily available in the larger cities and there maybe every other house was wired for it. Klein ends his history of power with this 1920’s era when electricity had reached its tipping point, but begins in the late eighteenth century and the onset of steam power. Why single out steam from wind, water, and heat? As he states in the introduction, “Without the steam engine there would be no electricity. Together they form the foundation of the modern world.”

I quite enjoyed this book. Klein makes the complicated topic of power generation both accessible and interesting. I found it fun to read about the men whose names are now permanently attached to energy: Ohm, Watt, Hertz, Galvani, Volta, and Faraday among others. Klein’s sly humor sprinkled throughout was a treat as well. “Unfortunately, [Lavoisier’s] work was literally cut short in 1974 when he was guillotined during the horrors of the French Revolution.” The only spots that rang false to me were those where a fictional person named Ned visited the three world’s fairs that served as touchstones for the progress of energy technologies. The descriptions of the expos and the exhibits therein were effective, but the imaginary Ned forced a viewpoint unlike anything else in the book and was a jarring departure from the narrative.

Klein balances the technologies themselves with the businesses that brought them to market throughout the book, giving a holistic view of energy that truly makes for an informative read. For instance, Edison and Westinghouse are the two names most closely associated with modern electricity, but it turns out that Sam Insull may have had the most influence on how our power grid works today. He was the pioneer of electricity distribution, and figured out that by creating a constant load on the generation system allowed it to run at the most efficient and the most cost effective manner. To achieve this he went after the ice-making market. “Refrigeration worked beautifully with lighting; it peaked during the summer as the use of lights reached seasonal lows.” Insull may not have invented any of the technologies that harnessed electricity, but he did more for bringing cheap power to the masses than anyone else.

Fascinating book!

First Sentence:

One evening in September 1876 a nine-year old boy, call him Ned, got the surprise of his young life.

Beyond Light Bulbs, by Susan Meredith

I recently took a new job at a solar company and have been learning a lot about alternative energy. I spotted Beyond Light Bulbs at Half Price Books; glancing at the introduction I saw that while the author now lives here in Austin she studied at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where our CTO taught. While the subject is more about modern energy management than solar specifically, the coincidences were enough for me to walk out of the store with it.

I found this to be a bit uneven, but overall does a good job of taking a complicated topic and making it accessible. Meredith outlines our obvious dependence on oil and other environmental hazards, and then describes the pros and cons of many alternative energy sources (including solar). I was a bit afraid I’d have to suffer through a lot of left-leaning propaganda, but her approach to global warming was quite refreshing. “Is there global warming or not? Is it caused by humans or natural phenomena? ... Rather than wasting our human energy debating this, ... why not find ways to reduce emissions so that we have good air quality, regardless of how our current problems were created?” Well said.

The descriptions of energy management and the problems we face therein are presented in a well-rounded form and quite useful. The author starts to lose some of her even-handedness towards the end, though. When describing how governments should get involved she does okay, but doesn’t really advocate a single approach. “Restrictive policies and standards can block energy flow. Sometimes this is appropriate. Some policies and standards channel solutions toward particular pathways. Sometimes that’s appropriate. Perhaps there are some policies and standards that need to be relaxed or removed to allow for flexibility in dealing with the uncertainty of the energy path ahead.” Unless you are of the all-government-restrictions-are-evil persuasion, virtually any view can be fit into that description! I think pouring money into corn-based ethanol is neither green nor a viable alternative to oil, but I suspect the farmers of Iowa will disagree; both of us, however, can claim Meredith’s approach fits our worldview.

Where she really goes off the rails in my opinion is her approach to world peace via smarter energy management. “1.6 Billion people in our world have no electricity! If we want to improve global relations, this is an obvious place to start.” The Peace Corps is the sort of agency to worry about bringing electricity to Sub-Saharan Africa; our government should concentrate more on reducing our hypocrisy and arrogance, instead starting to judge ourselves by the same standards we judge others. We improve global relations by being a better neighbor, not by building better light bulbs.

First Sentence:

“When are they going to make a movie that has a positive future?” my husband asked after watching yet another futuristic film showing destroyed buildings, chaos, violence, confusion, and a pervasive mood of despair.