.Power Play

Peter Asmus gauges the Golden State's grids.

You reach over and, without a thought, flip a switch. Seconds later,
you flip another. Then another. And somewhere out of sight, in ways
that the vast majority of us will never even try to comprehend, every
flipped switch sets off a string of signals that result in something
electrical turning on. Or off. Like magic.

But it’s not magic, as we learn during blackouts, when those
switches stop working. Fueling the bright lights and whirring blades
and busy TVs — when it works — is a complex system
known as a power grid, comprising a generator, transmitters,
transformer, substation, and those poles and wires that crisscross
every urban and suburban vista so ubiquitously that we visually tune
them out. The grid pours power into our hands … until it doesn’t.

North America’s power grids are akin to dinosaurs, argues
environmental journalist Peter Asmus, whose book Introduction
to Energy in California
is new from UC Press. Most of our grids
“were installed at around the same time as the telephone system,” and
thus are too antiquated to match rapidly rising energy needs: “Between
1975 and 2004, US electricity demand grew by more than 100 percent,”
Asmus points out, “while spending on grid upgrades declined by 50
percent.”

Uh-oh. That’s why in his richly illustrated new volume, which he
will discuss at University Press Books (2430 Bancroft Way,
Berkeley) on Tuesday, September 29, Asmus strives to clarify for the
average consumer what energy is, where it comes from, which alternative
sources are being tried around the world, and which others might be
found henceforth. Into the mix go fossil fuels, wind, liquefied natural
gas, nuclear power, and more. For the Marin County author, part of the
challenge was “to look at energy in a comprehensive and nonpoliticized
way. The theme that runs through the book is that California has always
gone out on a limb and embraced nearly every energy source with
wide-eyed enthusiasm.” This enthusiasm and the state’s trial-and-error
track record are giving us a headstart in meeting what Asmus calls “the
need for a more nimble, intelligent power grid.”

Fresh from editing the University of Wisconsin’s radical Daily
Cardinal
, the young Asmus “went into shock” when Ronald Reagan was
elected in 1980. He processed that shock throughout that decade as a
political journalist for the Sacramento Bee and San Jose
Mercury News
, then branched out into environmental reportage with
an investigative piece that “revealed the Reagan Administration’s plans
to burn the nation’s most dangerous toxins in the Gulf of Mexico and
off the coast of California.” That story led to a book, In Search of
Environmental Excellence
.

Asmus’ other volumes include Reinventing Electric Utilities:
Competition, Citizen Action and Clean Power
and Reaping the
Wind: How Mechanical Wizards, Visionaries and Profiteers Helped Shape
our Energy Future
. These days, he’s excited about microgrids and
about transitioning “from dependence on fossil fuels to a local-food,
local-energy, and local-farm future.” Fortuitously, he’s surrounded by
evidence and ideas, as “California experiments … are showing the way”
to “things like cool-roof technologies and better planning of
zero-energy buildings and communities.” Power on. 5:30 p.m., free.
UniversityPressBooks.com

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