5 years after blackout, power grid still in ‘dire straits’ (US)

[ensho]

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_3607.shtml


Five years ago this month, a devastating blackout rippled through the northeastern United States. The blackout plunged more than 50 million people into darkness for nearly three days and left a gaping $10 billion hole in the nation’s economy.

The power outage, however, wasn’t an isolated incident.

Three years later, in July 2006, Queens, New York, lost power for nine days, which resulted from the deterioration of decades old electrical cables responsible for sending power to that area’s 100,000 residents.

The US power grid -- three interconnected grids made up of 3,500 utilities serving 283 million people -- still hangs together by a thread, and its dilapidated state is perhaps one of the greatest threats to homeland security, according to Bruce deGrazia, the president of Global Homeland Security Advisors and a former assistant deputy undersecretary for the Department of Defense, who spoke at an electricity industry conference in Shepherdstown, Va.

The slightest glitch on the transmission superhighway could upset the smooth distribution of electricity over thousands of miles of transmission lines and darken states from Ohio to New York in a matter of seconds, bringing hospitals and airports to a standstill.

“The U.S. electrical grid -- the system that carries electricity from producers to consumers -- is in dire straits,” the Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank, said in a report last year. “Electricity generation and consumption have steadily risen, placing an increased burden on a transmission system that was not designed to carry such a large load”
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hope it doesn't go out in the winter time

[wizstars]

1. hey, we all KNOW what really caused the blackout....

...it was the dim bulb at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

[ensho]

2. true, the neo cons can turn off the electricity any time they want to

nt

[sinkingfeeling]

3. And Bush pledged to do something about it back then.

"It's a wake-up call," Mr. Bush said. "The grid needs to be modernized, the delivery systems need to be modernized. We've got an antiquated system."


http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/08/15/politics/main568596.shtml

Another of his absolute failures.

[SammyWinstonJack]

4. bu$h all talk no action when he really needs to take action. Figures.