The Blackout of 2003: Why We Fell Into The Heart of darkness

The road to the current reliability crisis is paved with four decades of bad policy decisions.

 

The technical causes of the great Northeast blackout of August 2003 are coming into focus. For reasons yet unknown as of press time, transmission lines in northern Ohio were lost to the grid, and within seconds 50 million people in the United States and Canada were without power. Soon we will no doubt know the specific reasons for the blackout, and technical corrections and improvements will be made.

Not so well understood are the management and social causes of the blackout, or that anything needs to be done about them. The August blackout, the California energy crisis, the 1996 West Coast power interruption, 1999 system disturbances in the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest, generally deteriorating reliability throughout the country, and the near bankruptcy of major segments of the electric power sector all have the same source. The electric power sector has lost its way, and we are now living with the consequences.

The Electric Power Sector Has Lost Its Purpose

Let's define what the central purpose of the electric power industry was, and should still be: to deliver electric power economically, safely, and reliably to all demographic and economic segments of the United States (or any other country).

Electricity is a commodity and an absolute requirement of an industrial or post-industrial economy. As the blackouts in California, the Northeast, and elsewhere demonstrate, without electricity civilization as we know it comes to a halt. Transportation stops, food spoils, living conditions deteriorate, and factories close.