How should we generate electricity for the world’s grids? This may be one of the most important questions of the 21st century. The stakes are incredibly high. At $2 trillion a year, electricity is one of the largest and most influential industries on earth. Whichever directions we take, some of the world’s largest corporations will… Read More
Critics claim that there simply isn’t enough land in the U.S. to power the country with solar. We dig through the numbers to reveal an answer that might surprise you. Read More
This is the third and final part in my series exploring the events that shaped the electric industry as we know it. If you haven’t already done so, I recommend reading part one and part two first. As I mentioned in part one, the power industry was born from the inventions and investments of Thomas… Read More
Most Americans give little thought to their electricity. Even though we spend between 3% and 7% of our income on power bills, we only engage with our power companies 10 minutes a year. Would it surprise you to learn that electricity is one of the largest and most profitable industries in the U.S? If we want… Read More
This is the second in a three-part series on the origins of the modern power industry. Part 1 can be found at How Edison, Tesla, and other visionaries invented the modern grid. The sparks that started the AC/DC current wars By the late 1880s, Edison was on his way to dominating the rapidly growing power… Read More
Flip the switch. Your light turns on. Simple, right? Actually, the light switch is straightforward but the system behind it is anything but simple. When you flip that switch, you are instantaneously connecting your bulb to the most sophisticated machine ever built. Carl Sagan once said, “We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science… Read More
Take a moment to imagine a world without electricity. You will quickly realize how dependent our 21st-century lives are on this invisible and silent form of energy. The modern electric grid was built from the late 1800s through the mid-1900s during one of greatest waves of invention in human history. The century-old power industry is… Read More
Competition is all about price, features, and customer experience. Right? That’s what business schools have been teaching for decades and it’s largely true. But, if you really want to change an industry, you need to change the rules. You need to create new business models. The untold story behind some of the most disruptive companies… Read More
The dirty secret of power plants Every time we turn on a light, crank up the air conditioning or wash our clothes, we are using electricity from the grid. But few of us ever stop and ponder the origins of our electricity. Do you know anyone that has actually been to a coal, natural gas,… Read More
Thomas Edison famously told his good friends Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone, “We are like tenant farmers chopping down the fence around our house for fuel, when we should be using Nature’s inexhaustible sources of energy—sun, wind, and tide. I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle… Read More
