213: Electricity Doesn't Act Like an Apple
Gretchen Bakke, a professor of anthropology at McGill University and author of The Grid, discusses the physical and cultural realities of the US power grid. She explains that electricity must be balanced second-by-second, creating challenges as variable renewable sources like wind and solar replace controllable fossil fuel plants. Bakke argues for a shift from centralized, brittle infrastructure to resilient, modular microgrids and smart devices that can manage demand and storage locally.