Rise of the supergrid

摘要

THE winds of the Oklahoma panhandle have a bad reputation. In the 1930s they whipped its over-tilled topsoil up into the billowing black blizzards of the Dust Bowl. The winds drove people, Steinbeck's dispossessed, away from their livelihoods and west, to California. Today, the panhandle's steady winds are a force for creation, not destruction. Wind turbines can generate electricity from them at rock-bottom prices. Unfortunately, the local electrical grid does not serve enough people to match this potential supply. The towns and cities which could use it are far away.