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A review by otterno11
Before the Lights Go Out: Conquering the Energy Crisis Before It Conquers Us by Maggie Koerth-Baker
4.0
I first became aware of this book when I saw author Maggie Koerth-Baker speak about the looming issues of our complicated, bloated, and inefficient power grid as part of the hilarious Theater of Public Policy improv at Huge Theater in Minneapolis. Koerth-Baker was an engaging speaker and really raised my awareness about energy issues. Granted, I had been interested in the environmental background of alternative energy, sustainability, “peak oil,” and all of those other green catchwords, but “Before the Lights Go Out” provided great background and introduction to a lot of the complex problems facing our current American energy culture. Problems that cannot be solved simply by buying energy efficient light bulbs, the book explores many ideas developing, including making entire houses or neighborhoods more efficient. This was really brought to as I read the book during the latest heat wave, my air conditioner pumping at full bore to keep my apartment at a tolerable temperature.
A fascinating read, Koerth-Baker crosses the country interviewing people from the “grid controllers” in Texas to biofuel experimenters in Madelia, Minnesota. While not going into too much depth on any one aspect of these interrelated topics, her writing is engaging and fun, never dragging these occasionally dry technical topics into dullness. In addition to sketching out our current power grid and power sources (coal, oil, nuclear, solar, wind, hydro) with all of its inefficiencies, weaknesses, and issues, she discusses some of the interesting alternatives that are being developed. Refreshingly, Koerth-Baker maintains an optimism throughout that, in spite of a lot of challenges, it is likely that we could face these challenges in energy demand and engineer solutions to some of them. In particular, a mixture of new alternative sources, making traditional sources more efficient in the meantime, and decentralizing production. While none of these problems will be solved by one “magical” solution, and nothing is ever perfect, with some cooperation and ingenuity we can move into the next stage of the energy revolution. I really learned a lot that I had not known before and would highly recommend this casual, informative science read.
A fascinating read, Koerth-Baker crosses the country interviewing people from the “grid controllers” in Texas to biofuel experimenters in Madelia, Minnesota. While not going into too much depth on any one aspect of these interrelated topics, her writing is engaging and fun, never dragging these occasionally dry technical topics into dullness. In addition to sketching out our current power grid and power sources (coal, oil, nuclear, solar, wind, hydro) with all of its inefficiencies, weaknesses, and issues, she discusses some of the interesting alternatives that are being developed. Refreshingly, Koerth-Baker maintains an optimism throughout that, in spite of a lot of challenges, it is likely that we could face these challenges in energy demand and engineer solutions to some of them. In particular, a mixture of new alternative sources, making traditional sources more efficient in the meantime, and decentralizing production. While none of these problems will be solved by one “magical” solution, and nothing is ever perfect, with some cooperation and ingenuity we can move into the next stage of the energy revolution. I really learned a lot that I had not known before and would highly recommend this casual, informative science read.