Gretchen Bakke

Which is the piece we're least likely to notice, which is essentially a kind of gray, industrial-looking kind of Lego-built box, sometimes in a box, but it's often just a square of land with a fence around it.

And what happens at the substation is that the electricity is stepped down in voltage, and it goes on to a totally different system, which is called the distribution network.

And that's what goes into the house.

So all of this stepping up is to move electricity long distance and stepping down is to keep it from being entirely lethal.

You can still kill yourself with it, but it's harder to do.

OK.

Electricity is always very, very fresh.

If you flip on your light switch or turn on your air conditioner about a minute before, that was a piece of coal or coal dust.

That tends to be what we burn.

Wow.

Or a drop of water or a gust of wind, right?

It's a very fast system.

And it will go simultaneously anywhere it's called.

And we call that a sink.

So if you turn on your air conditioner, all of the electricity in the system will say, ooh, a pathway.

And it will all come to you.

Wow.

And then it comes, poof, and your air conditioner goes on.

Forward, back, forward, back, forward, back, forward.

It's my favorite grid.