Grid Locked
99% Invisible22 Mar 2022

Grid Locked

In February 2021, it began to snow in Austin, Texas, which was unusual, and exciting for some, at least until the power dropped out for millions of people. To many, this came as a shock – how could a state known for its energy production have such widespread, prolonged power outages? To understand the situation, one has to look at the history of the grid, and how Texas came to be what we call an “energy island.” It's the only state in the lower 48 that operates its own independent electric grid.

For more on the Texas grid by Mose Buchele, be sure to check out The Disconnect.

Grid Locked

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Episoder(771)

The White Elephant Of Tel Aviv

The White Elephant Of Tel Aviv

Israeli buses regularly make international headlines, be it for suicide bombings, fights over gender segregation, or clashes concerning Shabbat schedules. One particular ill-fated megastructure, howev...

30 Mar 201634min

Flying Food

Flying Food

The last hundred years or so of food advertising have been shaped by this one simple fact: real food usually looks pretty unappetizing on camera. It’s static and boring to look at, and it tends to wil...

23 Mar 201614min

The SoHo Effect

The SoHo Effect

In San Francisco, the area South of Market Street is called SoMa. The part of town North of the Panhandle is known as NoPa. Around the intersection of North Oakland, Berkeley and Emeryville, real esta...

16 Mar 201617min

The Giftschrank

The Giftschrank

Centuries ago, Germany came up with a way to keep books that contained “dangerous” information without releasing them to the general public: The Giftschrank. The word, a combination of “poison” and “c...

9 Mar 201618min

Mojave Phone Booth

Mojave Phone Booth

Situated in the middle of the Mojave desert, over a dozen miles from the nearest pavement, a lone phone booth sat along a dirt road, just waiting to become an international sensation. Mojave Phone Boo...

2 Mar 201618min

Video- The Norman Door with Vox

Video- The Norman Door with Vox

There is an epidemic of terrible doors in the world. But when Don Norman got frustrated with them, he ended up changing the way people everywhere think about design. Video by Joe Posner of Vox, featur...

27 Feb 20165min

The Green Book

The Green Book

The middle of the 20th Century was a golden age for road travel in the United States. Cars had become cheap and spacious enough to carry families comfortably for hundreds of miles. The Interstate High...

24 Feb 201619min

Miss Manhattan

Miss Manhattan

All around the country, there stands a figure so much a part of historical architecture and urban landscapes that she is rarely noticed. She has gone by many names, from Star Maiden to Priestess of Cu...

17 Feb 201616min

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