BURN: An Energy Journal

BURN's new hour-long special "The Switch" is about our aging electric power grid: a half century-old patchwork system - stretched to capacity - that transmits and distributes electricity from plants to consumers. Host Alex Chadwick and BURN's producers and reporters explore how the grid works, and what happens when it breaks under storms and floods. We talk to the people who help fix it, a family that's left the whole thing behind, and the innovators working to make our national grid safer and smarter. http://burnanenergyjournal.com/the-switch/

Do you REALLY understand how an electrical grid works? Producer Josh Kurz explain today's power grid, some of its biggest problems, and how smart grid technology could help. http://burnanenergyjournal.com/the-switch/

Paul Stockton was the government’s point man for protecting the nation’s electrical grid from terrorist attacks. He served for four years as President Obama's Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Americas' Security Affairs. Stockton was the responsible for “defense critical infrastructure protection.” He talks with host Alex Chadwick about the threat of terrorism against the grid. They also discuss the lessons learned from Hurricane Sandy and how best to protect the grid during the next super storm. http://burnanenergyjournal.com/the-switch/

Host Alex Chadwick reports on an unlikely energy innovator - the US Army - which is preparing to deploy a radically redesigned combat outpost featuring a smart micro-grid. COPs are basic military camp for about 100 soldiers. They need to function like small communities - with water, sanitation, food, and power. In Afghanistan and Iraq, supplying these units with fuel and water became the single greatest point of vulnerability. The new COPs cut fuel demand by at least 50%, which means fewer caravans, and fewer casualties. http://burnanenergyjournal.com/the-switch/

Michelle Nijhuis has lived off the electrical grid with her husband Jack Perrin in the tiny town Paonia, Colorado for fifteen years in a house built with straw bales, plastered with mud and powered by the sun. These two are in the minority in Paonia (population 1,500) with only a couple dozen others who are also off the grid there. Nijhuis has what some might consider the absolute dream job. She’s an award-winning science journalist who travels the world and has her pick of projects for National Geographic or Smithsonian magazines. But while on the road, she keeps her lifestyle back in rural Colorado rather private. It’s a way of life, she says, many consider “somewhere between bizarre and unimaginable.” http://burnanenergyjournal.com/the-switch/

Jim Rogers heads the largest electric power company in the country, Duke Energy. They serve about about 22-million people in the Southeast and Midwest. The award-winning CEO talks with host Alex Chadwick about the challenges of powering the nation, what makes the grid great, and the future of efficiency & smart grid innovation. http://burnanenergyjournal.com/the-switch/

It's been almost 9 months since Hurricane Sandy blew out all of Hoboken, New Jersey's power. It took a week and a half to pump the water out of the city, and repairs to public and private property, and to the grid system, are going to be very expensive. Mayor Dawn Zimmer spoke with BURN host Alex Chadwick about her city's plans to get ready when - not if - the next storm comes to Hoboken. http://burnanenergyjournal.com/the-switch/

When Hurricane Sandy landed last fall, Hoboken, New Jersey got slammed. The Hudson River flooded, knocking out all of the city's power. Hobken went completely dark. Host Alex Chadwick heads to Hoboken - the former marshland just across the water from New York's West Village - and talks to people who were there the night Sandy took out this small city.

They are the electric grid army. When the power go out, legions of power linesmen are deployed across our cities and towns. They climb poles and rework wires, just to bring back the light. Science reporter Ari Daniel Shapiro has this portrait of linesman Tim Gallant, who's been working for the National Grid energy company for more than 3 decades. http://burnanenergyjournal.com/the-switch/

Running a family-owned farm is one of this country's more difficult livelihoods. Before electrical power, it was even harder. In the early 1930s, only 11% of the country's farms had power. Fifty years later, nearly all of them had electricity. Here are oral histories of people who experienced the life-changing transformation. Produced by NPR veteran Bob Malesky. http://burnanenergyjournal.com/the-switch/

BURN's latest special is the story of our nation's electrical grid system - celebrated as an engineering feat, and seen as a burned out mess of towers and cables. More than 300 million customers flip the switch everyday. These are stories of how the grid works, and what happens when it doesn't. http://burnanenergyjournal.com/the-switch/

A post-Fukushima effort to crowdsource radiation data in Japan has since become the largest source of radiation data in the country. And it’s now set to expand to other parts of the world. Catherine Winter reports from Tokyo.

BURN's new summer special is about our nation's electrical power grid. For part of the hour-long show, we went to Ft. Bliss to learn about how the Army is confronting its power challenges. Mainly, we were there to tape interviews. And then we caught one of these rolling by. Pretty awesome. http://burnanenergyjournal.com/the-switch/

Bankers - not the most well-respected citizens these days. Deservedly or not, they tend to be seen as fat cats who enrich themselves at the expense of their fellow citizens. So maybe bankers looking to rehabilitate their image could take a lesson from Tsuyoshi Yoshiwara - a Japanese banker who's recently made a name for himself as a crusader against nuclear power... and FOR human decency. Catherine Winter reports for The World.

The U.S. Army's Rapid Equipping Force - REF for short - is a little-known agency making big changes in how soldiers fight. It was created after an officer saw a video of soldiers trying to clear an Afghan cave with a rope and grappling hook - why not robots, he wondered? That was 10 years ago, and as BURN host Alex Chadwick reports, since then REF has become an innovator in many fields, including energy. http://goo.gl/dwaKG