Electrify

An Optimist's Playbook for Our Clean Energy Future

By: Saul Griffith

Narrated by: David Marantz

Length: 7 hrs and 13 mins

Publisher's summary

In Electrify, Saul Griffith lays out a detailed blueprint - optimistic but feasible - for fighting climate change while creating millions of new jobs and a healthier environment. Griffith's plan can be summed up simply: Electrify everything. He explains exactly what it would take to transform our infrastructure, update our grid, and adapt our households to make this possible. Billionaires may contemplate escaping our worn-out planet on a private rocket ship to Mars, but the rest of us, Griffith says, will stay and fight for the future.

Griffith, an engineer and inventor, calls for grid neutrality, ensuring that households, businesses, and utilities operate as equals; we will have to rewrite regulations that were created for a fossil-fueled world, mobilize industry as we did in World War II, and offer low-interest "climate loans." Griffith's plan doesn't rely on big, not-yet-invented innovations, but on thousands of little inventions and cost reductions. We can still have our cars and our houses-but the cars will be electric and solar panels will cover our roofs. For a world trying to bounce back from a pandemic and economic crisis, there is no other project that would create as many jobs - up to 25 million, according to one economic analysis. Is this politically possible? We can change politics along with everything else.

©2021 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (P)2021 Tantor

Simplified solutions to save money and decarbonize our world!

This book helps to reveal the most logical, practical and necessary path to decarbonization. Full and complete electrification of our world. Fascinatingly, Griffith uses his deep understanding of the US energy system to compare and contrast many potential solution paths. Spoiler alert; the only one that gets us the outcome we want is full electrification of all machines and the elimination and early retirement of all carbon emitting appliances, vehicles, energy production equipment, etc. One of my favorite messages which I personally am spreading and also doing my best to live up to is; make the big decisions right. The next car you buy has to be an EV, put Solar and battery storage on your home, and an EV charger in the garage. When your major appliances fail, replace them with electric only versions (water heater, stove, furnace, etc). Well done Mr. Griffith, if I ever meet you in person, beers are on me!

inspired manifesto for change

If we can follow the plan laid out in the book we could have a very successful future.

simple executable solution to climate changes

laid out well, narrator was excellent . A simple executable solution to climate changes that lifts the world economy and gives the world population an opportunity to contribute. All in or done. choose?

Great book. Okay via audio.

The messages in this book are crucial for anyone interested in learning how they (and their cities and societies) can most effectively make an impact on combating climate change. The content is relevant and accessible to general audiences. I recommend getting through the appendices as well, where Griffith offers specific calls to action for various audience types. Narrator voice wasn't particularly engaging for me so it took several weeks to get through. I recommend acquiring or borrowing a physical copy to get the full benefit of data visualizations, which are harder to understand when narrated. Nevertheless, I'm grateful there's an audio version since audiobooks is how I get through most of my nonfiction these days

roadmap to the energy future

Great outline of a way forward on energy infrastructure. Whole some of this book is a rehash off known ideas he also has some less well known concepts. Even as someone who has worked in a related field and knows a bit about the subject I leaned a decent amount from this book.

Makes the case for electrification in the US (and world)

Well researched and communicated overview of why we need to electrify everything we can as soon as we can.

Great book

Narrator sounds like a computer voice. Is it?
Content awesome. Narration is monotoníc, But amazing book. Much needed learning about how to sol e the climate crisis. Highly recommended.

Optimistic but Practical

The subtitle gives you a pretty good idea of what to expect from this book. It is certainly optimistic, not from a technical standpoint, but certainly from a political one. It is a playbook in that the focus is less on the problem itself and more on what to do in clear steps. The main thing that is missing in that is that the author is clearly an engineer. He writes like an engineer. He focuses on data, on what can be done, on how it can be done, and on what may sound good (i.e., what makes good sound bites for politicians, influencers, and others who make money on spouting oversimplified memes to attract an audience) but is not really practical. And if you’re willing to follow the data instead of a preconception, he makes a lot of sense.

Now, if I can oversimplify a bit, Saul Griffith’s plan is basically to electrify everything, and considering the main title of the book, that should not be a surprise. But that is truly an oversimplification because Griffith is not only an optimist, but also an engineer and a practical one at that. He understands that this means a lot more than just starting to buy electric cars, heat pumps, etc. It means a major transformation in infrastructure, including rebuilding the electrical grid, rethinking what it means to be an electricity provider, considering what to do with the existing infrastructure and the existing energy industry, and so much more. And he is not a radical who wants to shut everything down now. He does NOT encourage you to junk your perfectly good gasoline-powered car to buy an electric car until the old car is worn out. He does not want you to get rid of your gas furnace until it is worn out. He does not want us to shut down current power generating plants that are not yet at the end of their useful life. But he does say that we should not be building any new fossil-fueled generating plants. 

Why electric? Electricity is much more efficient. The most efficient automobile engines don’t even come close to the efficiency of an electric motor, even when you count the losses involved in charging and discharging a battery. Much of the energy in a conventional car is wasted in producing heat. Yes, the electricity at this time might be produced by a fossil-fuel plant, but even with all the losses along the way, that’s still far more efficient than a fossil-fuel engine. And as we convert to green energy, mostly solar and wind, then you do get to zero. 

Yes, there are also a lot of other questions and Saul Griffith deals with those as well. What about all the environmental harm done in digging lithium and cobalt out of the ground? But those are worst case scenarios especially for lithium, which doesn’t have to be mined that way. And he notes that 11% of our energy is currently used in just getting fossil fuels out of the ground, not counting the costs of transport, refining, and storage and cleanup of all the environmental damage which critics of electric powered vehicles conveniently don’t count. Another problem raised is that the sun doesn’t always shine and the wind doesn’t always blow. He deals with that also. 

And, while he notes that there are improvements in battery technologies on the horizon as well as other technologies, none of his plan relies on that future hopes. His figures come from technologies that we have right now. And, more important to a lot of people, he scoffs at the push to economize and save. His plans do not require us to drive smaller cars or change our thermostats. 

There are some weaknesses. He doesn’t deal with the politics and he focuses only on the US, not the globe. But, that could also be a strength. One book can’t answer everything and it makes sense to start with a solution and then have specialists in communication, sociology, politics, and other fields take that solution and run with it. But he does deal with some of the infrastructure issues that go beyond engineering. He notes that our economy and regulatory structure has been created for the current industries–the big electricity generators and the fossil-fuel industry. The current regulations favor them and subsidize them in ways that are sometimes transparent and sometimes not. Yes, to free-market enthusiasts, we do heavily subsidize fossil-fuel industries. And even with those subsidies, coal-fired plants are becoming very expensive and solar and wind are now much cheaper. 

His plan would require a complete rebuilding of the grid, but nothing beyond what other countries are already doing, especially China which is decades ahead of us in its reconstruction of its electrical grid. It would require a complete rethinking of electricity generation, putting the small generators (homeowners with solar panels, strip malls who offer their customers covered parking that is covered with solar panels, etc.) on an equal footing with larger generators, making the grid serve everyone equally, a bit more like the internet, in his thinking. 

The advantages go beyond green energy. It’s also cleaner and less polluting. It would also provide millions of new jobs. And it would give the US a strong base in the industries and technologies of the future which would fuel our economy for decades to come. He likes to compare this to the funding buildup for World War II or the investment to go to the moon. Both cost a lot of money (and were criticised as wasteful by many at the time) but both gave us huge technological advantages and gave a strong boost to our economy. 

It was nice to read a book with concrete solutions based on real data for a change, instead of radical sloganeering and doomsday predictions. Saul Griffith does believe that, if we don’t change, we are heading for a terrible scenario of almost doomsday proportions, but that’s not what this book is about. It’s not an emotional plea. It’s a clear, well-thought-out plan based on data. And it is not a call to any major sacrifice. You don’t have to put on sweaters at home in the winter and you can keep your SUVs. I’d like more detail, especially in the area of battery technology and the rare-earth metals supply chain, but it’s a good start at a clear plan and I’d recommend anyone to read it. I think some government leaders had better call Saul as well (Sorry, I just couldn’t resist that).

Read this book

To me, this book makes two very central points. One, the importance and immediacy of the need to create sustainable infrastructure and eliminate our dependence on fossil fuels. Two, all the technology we need to accomplish this already exists.

Great material but why no pdf?!

This book has countless tables and charts that are referenced yet no accompanying pdf. First audio book I have ever purchased without such a pdf. Pretty lame.