The Grid: A Journey Through the Heart of Our Electrified WorldNational Academies Press, 20/02/2007 - 318 páginas The electrical grid goes everywhere-it's the largest and most complex machine ever made. Yet the system is built in such a way that the bigger it gets, the more inevitable its collapse. Named the greatest engineering achievement of the 20th century by the National Academy of Engineering, the electrical grid is the largest industrial investment in the history of humankind. It reaches into your home, snakes its way to your bedroom, and climbs right up into the lamp next to your pillow. At times, it almost seems alive, like some enormous circulatory system that pumps life to big cities and the most remote rural areas. Constructed of intricately interdependent components, the grid operates on a rapidly shrinking margin for error. Things can-and do-go wrong in this system, no matter how many preventive steps we take. Just look at the colossal 2003 blackout, when 50 million Americans lost power due to a simple error at a power plant in Ohio; or the one a month later, which blacked out 57 million Italians. And these two combined don't even compare to the 2001 outage in India, which affected 226 million people. The Grid is the first history of the electrical grid intended for general readers, and it comes at a time when we badly need such a guide. As we get more and more dependent on electricity to perform even the most mundane daily tasks, the grid's inevitable shortcomings will take a toll on populations around the globe. At a moment when energy issues loom large on the nation's agenda and our hunger for electricity grows, The Grid is as timely as it is compelling. |
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... event in which 50 million people lost power. What happens to a major city like New York when elevators, trains, traffic lights, gas pumps, and heart–lung machines suddenly stop? We usually take electricity for granted and don't realize ...
... event and the extensive restructuring of the power industry, chiefly through divestiture, deregulation, and the introduction of new technology. The effects of this huge business shakeup are still unfolding. How is electricity made ...
... ingenuity at work, as manifested in electrical devices and engineering daring. This shining event, which helps illuminate the meaning of the grid, is the moon landing of 1969. 1 The GRIDNeSS OF The GRID gods. Strapped into your The GRID.
... event was a blizzard of deficits—a deficit of energy, a deficit of light and motion, and, especially for those pondering a night's sleep around Madison Square Garden, a deficit of options. An event like the 2003 blackout offers a rich ...
... event was a bit like the medieval Feast of Fools, the Yuletide holiday when in towns around Europe class ... event. But as this gigantic de-electrification event was unfolding, what the gridness of the grid 1.
Índice
3 Most Electrified City | |
4 Imperial Grid | |
5 Worst Day in Grid History | |
6 Thirty Million Powerless | |
7 Overhauling the Grid | |
8 Energizing the Grid | |
9 Touching the Grid | |
10 Grid on the Moon | |
Notes | |
Acknowledgments | |
Index | |
Outras edições - Ver tudo
The Grid: A Journey Through the Heart of Our Electrified World Phillip F. Schewe Pré-visualização limitada - 2007 |
The Grid: A Journey Through the Heart of Our Electrified World Phillip F. Schewe Pré-visualização limitada - 2007 |
The Grid: A Journey Through the Heart of Our Electrified World Phillip F. Schewe Pré-visualização indisponível - 2007 |