juice

I read the other day of a photo of African teens huddled under a street light where they could see to do their homework.  They have cell phones that work but not electricity in their homes so they use a street light to see well enough to study at night.

I tend to think that electricity comes from the wall and that is because mammoth planning, discussion, argument and work took place during the latter half of the 1800's in the electrification of the cities.  I have read that Westinghouse and others supported using alternating electricity since they produce plenty and send it long distances but Edison hated the idea because of the dangers of such juice.  I believe he electrified live cats and  such in public demos to show the deadly effects of alternating current.

Waterfalls, dams and windmills can all be used to create large amounts of electricity as well as coal and other engines and turbines.  An interesting  sounding book The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind is about an African teenager who read in American sponsored libraries about how to build wind-driven electricity generation and did so.

My hero W.E. Deming stressed that 95% of human error comes from the design (or lack thereof) of the system we are operating in.   We have juice for our houses now because of the discoveries of others about electricity but it also comes from the creation and operation and maintenance of co-ops and utilities companies, a distribution and billing system that  we need as much as wires.