Smart Grid
Our electric grid is a marvel of 20th-century engineering, but it's showing signs of strain. Can a "smart grid" help? Aired February 23, 2011 on PBS
- Posted 02.23.11
- NOVA scienceNOW
Program Description
How does electricity get from its source to your light switch? Could a new "smart grid" do the job better? Smart grids support transient power sources like solar and wind, heading off devastating power outages and enabling consumers to make greener—and more economical—choices about how and when to power up.
Broadcast Credits
NOVA scienceNOW: What's the Next Big Thing?
- Social Robots
- Edited by
- Jedd Ehrmann
- Written, Produced and Directed by
- Terri Randall
- Earthquake Detection
- Edited by
- Dan Crow
- Produced by
- Heeth Grantham
- Written by
- Matthew Collins
- Directed by
- Kirk Wolfinger
- Robo Cars
- Edited by
- Jedd Ehrmann
- Written, Produced and Directed by
- Terri Randall
- Smart Grid
- Edited by
- Jedd Ehrmann
- Written, Produced and Directed by
- Terri Randall
- Profile: Jay Keasling
- Edited by
- Robe Imbriano
- Written, Produced and Directed by
- Robe Imbriano
- Executive Producer
- Samuel Fine
- Executive Editor
- Neil deGrasse Tyson
- Senior Series Producer
- Vincent Liota
- Senior Editorial Producer
- Julia Cort
- Supervising Producers
- Stephen Sweigart Joey David Jovanovich
- Senior Editor and Colorist
- David Chmura
- Senior Researcer
- Sharon Kay
- Associate Producer
- Fran Laks
- Online Editor
- Vincent Liota
- Graphic Design
- Brian Edgerton
- Compositor & Animator
- Yunsik Noh
- Music
- Rob Morsberger
- Sound Mix
- Bill Cavanaugh, RazorMix, Inc.
- Assistant Editors
- Yunsik Noh
Nicolas Stark - Assistant to Neil deGrasse Tyson
- Elizabeth Stachow
- NOVA scienceNOW Series Animation
- Edgeworx
- Production Manager for Smart Grid Segment
- Michael Reichman
- Field Producer for Jay Keasling Segment
- Carla Denly
- Associate Producer
- Daniel Sites
- Camera
- Yoram Astrakhan
Joseph Brunette
David Dellaria
Joseph Friedman
Ralph Knox
Ben McCoy
Duane Poquis - Sound Recordists
- Glen Ackers
Ryan Agostino
Carl Franson
Dennis Jensen
Brian Kaurich
Tim Korn
Jeremy Sides
Daniel Sites
Eugene Thompson - Animation
- Edgeworx
Jared Flynn
Hiro Sasa
399 Productions - Prop Maker
- Spencer Anderson
- Archival Material
- AP Archive
General Motors
Dennis M. Ihde
iStockphoto
American Honda Motor Co., Inc.
Carnegie Mellon University, Robotics Institute
IEEE Spectrum magazine
Philip K. Dick Trust
Toyota Motor Corp.
Bosch Home Appliances
Duke Energy
Electric Power Research Institute
smart USA
Drew Davidson/Getty Images
Personal Robotics Lab, Intel Labs Pittsburgh
U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy - Special Thanks
- Rick Hursh
Dan Popa
Stefany Sanders
Michael Terrazas
Chih-Hung Aaron King
Hanson Robotics
Tesla Motors
PJM Interconnection
Terry Boston, PJM
Willow Garage
Travis Deyle
The Healthcare Robotics Lab at Georgia Tech
Socially Intelligent Machines Lab at Georgia Tech
Willett Kempton, University of Delaware
Roger Anderson, Columbia University - Neil deGrasse Tyson is director of the Hayden Planetarium in the Rose Center for Earth and Space at the American Museum of Natural History.
- NOVA Series Graphics
- yU + co.
- NOVA Theme Music
- Walter Werzowa
John Luker
Musikvergnuegen, Inc. - Additional NOVA Theme Music
- Ray Loring
Rob Morsberger - Post Production Online Editor
- Spencer Gentry
- Closed Captioning
- The Caption Center
- NOVA Administrator
- Kristen Sommerhalter
- Publicity
- Eileen Campion
Victoria Louie
Karen Laverty - Marketing
- Steve Sears
- Researcher
- Kate Becker
- Production Coordinator
- Linda Callahan
- Paralegal
- Sarah Erlandson
- Talent Relations
- Scott Kardel, Esq.
Janice Flood - Legal Counsel
- Susan Rosen
- Post Production Assistant
- Darcy Forlenza
- Associate Producer Post Production
- Patrick Carey
- Post Production Supervisor
- Regina O’Toole
- Post Production Editor
- Rebecca Nieto
- Post Production Manager
- Nathan Gunner
- Compliance Manager
- Linzy Emery
- Development Producer
- Pamela Rosenstein
- Business and Product Manager
- Jonathan Loewald
- Senior Producer and Project Director,
Margret & Hans Rey/Curious George Producer - Lisa Mirowitz
- Coordinating Producer
- Laurie Cahalane
- Senior Science Editor
- Evan Hadingham
- Senior Series Producer
- Melanie Wallace
- Executive Producer
- Howard Swartz
- Managing Director
- Alan Ritsko
- Senior Executive Producer
- Paula S. Apsell
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0917517. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
NOVA scienceNOW is a trademark of the WGBH Educational Foundation
NOVA scienceNOW is produced for WGBH/Boston by NOVA
© 2011 WGBH Educational Foundation
All rights reserved
Image:
- Image credit: (transformer)
- © TebNad/iStockphoto
Participants
- Eric Lightner
- U.S. Department of Energy
- Andrew Phillips
- Electric Power Research Institute
- Vijay Vaitheeswaran
- The Economist www.vijaytothepeople.com/
Related Links
-
Toward a Smart Electric Grid
Should the U.S. be upgrading now to a "smart" electric grid? An energy expert insists there's no time to lose.
-
Cars That Power the Grid
Electric cars that feed energy back to the power grid may play a critical role in a future “smart grid.”
-
What's the Next Big Thing?
Greet the future: social robots, a "smart" electric grid, microbes that make diesel fuel, and more.
-
Smart Bridges
Can we engineer bridges that tell us what's wrong with them before it's too late?
