How the World Really Works: The Science Behind How We Got Here and Where We're Going

by Vaclav Smil

And even in this era of high-tech electronic miracles, it is still impossible to store electricity affordably in quantities sufficient to meet the demand of a medium-sized city (500,000 people) for only a week or two, or to supply a megacity (more than 10 million people) for just half a day.[51] But despite these complications, high costs, and technical challenges, we have been striving to electrify modern economies, and this quest for ever-higher electrification will continue because this form of energy combines many unequaled advantages. Most obviously, at the point of its final consumption, electricity’s use is always effortless and clean, and the majority of the time it is also exceptionally efficient. With just the flip of a switch, push of a button, or adjustment of a thermostat (now often requiring only a hand signal or voice command), electric lights and motors or electric heaters and coolers are turned on—with no bulky fuel storages, no laborious carrying and stoking, no dangers of incomplete combustion (emitting poisonous carbon monoxide), and no cleaning of lamps or stoves or furnaces.