U.S. electricity blackouts skyrocketing

[Dogmudgeon]

I've only quoted the numbers: the interviews are even more troubling.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/innovation/08/09/smart.grid/">U.S. electricity blackouts skyrocketing

...

Should Americans view these kinds of scenarios as extraordinary circumstances -- or a warning sign of a darker future?

Experts on the nation's electricity system point to a frighteningly steep increase in non-disaster-related outages affecting at least 50,000 consumers.

During the past two decades, such blackouts have increased 124 percent -- up from 41 blackouts between 1991 and 1995, to 92 between 2001 and 2005, according to research at the University of Minnesota.

In the most recently analyzed data available, utilities reported 36 such outages in 2006 alone.

...

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/innovation/08/09/smart.grid/">Read the article at CNN.com

--d!

[pscot]

1. The reliability of our system has gotten better

but the managers were trying to defeat a ballot measure that would have turned them into a public utility. They succeded, and promptly sold out to an energy conglomerate from Oz, so now the regular outages can be allowed to resume.

[ixion]

2. Distributed energy systems will localize blackouts...

Just sayin'...

[Tesha]

3. 'Happened to us yesterday. A thirty minute outage mid-day.

America's decline to third-world status continues apace.

Tesha