lol ok in a world where everything works right you would never need the ground wire, but because you may get a big jolt of electrical current down the line you need to have the ground wire attached to the shortest link to earth (before your electronic device). I'm not going to be the one to tell you that you don't need it, but it will work with out it. to ground it what you need to do is cut the power at the panel to that outlet, get a screw driver pull the outlet off and attach it to the green screw on the outlet, put back together and turn it on. Other grounding options are metal conduit or a COLD water pipe (not hot as they don't go into the ground). I couldn't tell what the pictures where saying but you want the ground attached to metal at the balast where the power first comes in (to ground the charge before it hurts the balast)