Report says solar storms could mess us up.

[Count Chocula]

Oh, it's not a crappy power grid at all - it's simply a very large power grid that covers almost every type of terrain that Earth has, and is on a continent that is, shall we say, active meteorologically. Much of the distribution/transmission lines run through very thinly populated areas, and fixing system breaks takes time. In the Northeast outage, and the multiple hurricane-related outages we've endured in Florida, the protective systems mostly work - i.e., we didn't lose any substations.

One could argue that the northeast outage of 2003 was influenced by political decisions. Unlike, say, the telecom industry, there is very little excess capacity in the American energy distribution system. The East and West grids, especially, run very near maximum generating capacity in the summer. Building additional generating plants would alleviate similar problems in the future, but there is consistent opposition (by NIMBY locals especially) to new plants, especially nuclear and coal-fired. Coal, BTW, accounts for about 50% of the power generation in the US. Add local opposition, EPA & NRC strictures, and so-called "carbon taxes," and new plant construction is economically unappealing to producers.

[Broomstick]

That`s completely new to me. Never thought one of the wealthiest countries in the world has so crappy power grid.

Yet another demonstration that, while we may have wealth, we haven't always spent wisely. As Chocula mentions, part of the problem is weather, part is terrain, part is transporting power through wilderness areas. We could have chosen to build a more robust system but did not, for reasons that appeared sensible at the time.

[General Zod]

Yet another demonstration that, while we may have wealth, we haven't always spent wisely. As Chocula mentions, part of the problem is weather, part is terrain, part is transporting power through wilderness areas.

The Bush administration's energy policy for the last 8 years certainly hasn't helped any either.

[Sky Captain]

Yet another demonstration that, while we may have wealth, we haven't always spent wisely. As Chocula mentions, part of the problem is weather, part is terrain, part is transporting power through wilderness areas.

The Bush administration's energy policy for the last 8 years certainly hasn't helped any either.

Well it`s not like my country is without energy problems. When Ignalina nuclear power station in Lithuania shuts down the whole Baltic region will have serious baseload deficit. And yet politicians are endlessly debating for years whether to build or not to build a new modern nuclear reactor. We nearly started to build CANDU type reactor in the early nineties but when environmentalists heard about the project they went haywire and project was canceled before any hardware was ordered and any concrete poured.