In the Dark

Why You're Never Going to Get Cheap Power Unless You Take It

Skip Bowman. Published spring 2027 by Vivisolari.

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Cover of In the Dark by Skip Bowman

By 2022 I'd lost £230,000, first to Covid and then to an energy crisis that was supposed to be about gas. My neighbour, same street, same war, barely noticed. I set out to find out why, and ended up following the money from Nord Stream to the meter on my own wall, across five countries.

The answer isn't the fuel. Renewables were bolted onto a liberalised electricity market, so the costs reached your bill and the savings went to the owners. The book is the investigation, and the way out: households and communities that own their own power.

What's inside

Part 1: The Crime

  1. 0The RedbackGrowing up in Perth, you check under the seat. Nobody told me to check the energy bill.
  2. 1The Main SuspectEurope spent the price of a war and bought back the crisis it already had.
  3. 2The Crime SceneNord Stream, and the better question: why one match could bring the whole system down.
  4. 3The WeaponBritain took the poison out of the gas. It kept the dependency.
  5. 4The TrapThe miners' strike everyone remembers, and the flotation almost nobody noticed.
  6. 5The PriceTexas, Adelaide, and the pricing rule that stopped describing the world.
  7. 6Generation RInfrastructure became cheap to build just as money was made expensive.
  8. 7The Control GroupKalgoorlie, two-up, and a game where only one side is gambling.

Part 2: The System

  1. 8The StingWhy the crisis hit my neighbour softer. Exposure isn't weather. It's a position.
  2. 9The ContractThe household stops buying the gas. The pipe keeps charging.
  3. 10WhitewashDanish citizens built the turbine and gave the design away. The market sold it back through the bill.
  4. 11Raising the DeadA low Rhine, a chemistry running out, and the question of who owns the next surplus.
  5. 12The Hidden SurplusA surplus has an owner, or it has a rule. It can't have both.
  6. 13The DiversionGaslight, the curtain, and learning to trust what you can see.
  7. 14The Uninvited GuestClair Patterson found lead everywhere. The bill has its own contamination.
  8. 15The InstrumentThe wind produces abundance. The instrument prices scarcity.
  9. 16The Same RoofCopenhagen, the Dordogne, and the same roof with different hardware.

Part 3: The Way Forward

  1. 17The Invisible NumberThe saving nobody shows you, and the export somebody switched off.
  2. 18The Oilfield in the DrivewayA retired North Sea geologist, and the asset parked outside your house.
  3. 19The Electric WorldIt's already installed. The question is who holds the deed.
  4. 20The SpreadA battery that pays back in four years, advertised as twenty.
  5. 21The Two-Tier RiskSame technology, same street, different owner, twice the price.
  6. 22The StealBoardrooms, standing charges, and the value leaving the house.
  7. 23The RailroadA village fought a solar park and still lost its school.
  8. 24The MillA cold-air corridor above Frankfurt, and the end of the investigation.
  9. 25The SubscriptionThe money was never missing. This time, nobody called.
  10. 26Take It BackSchönau: the town that bought its own grid.

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