Book Report: The Powerhouse

It's a book about advanced battery research in the USA. I learned that this field is favored by "charismatic thieves, swindlers, who are tricking people." Not all such researchers are charlatans; some are merely dupes wondering why they're having trouble making progress on their research (building upon what turns out to be false experiments by charlatans, whoops).

At one point, the book points out that Elon Musk, the Tesla car guy, "thumbed his nose" at cutting-edge battery researchers by choosing some tried-and-true battery technology. But after reading about what passes for business-as-usual shenanigans in this field, I'm thinking maybe he wasn't "thumbing his nose" so much as carefully backing away from a horde of confidence tricksters. Well… maybe only 25% confidence tricksters, but who knows which 25%?

I hoped to learn some History of Science, and was pleased. Fans of the True Crime genre might be surprised how much they find to enjoy in this book as well.