Friday, August 15, 2003 12:01 a.m. EDT
The fragility of modern economic life was demonstrated again yesterday
afternoon with the power blackout that struck most of the American
Northeast and parts of Canada. Tens of thousands were trapped in
elevators, buildings or subways, while millions had to negotiate a long,
difficult commute home from the office. Airports and nuclear power plants
closed.
Everyone who recalls September 11 immediately thought of terrorism, and
we can all be thankful it wasn't the cause. But it's somehow not
reassuring to hear government officials refer to the event the way New
York Mayor Michael Bloomberg did as a "natural occurrence." Natural is
what happens in nature, like a tornado, but a national power grid is a
man-made operation.
The breadth of the energy disruption suggests that some major
rethinking deserves to be done about the vulnerability of America's power
grid. If an accident can shut down an entire U.S. region for half a day,
imagine what well-planned sabotage could do. The U.S. has grown complacent
as the memory of California's blackouts in 2000 has faded. But especially
in the Northeast, the U.S. is still operating on an energy supply and with
a load-sharing grid that has very little room for error.
Our political class has once more turned back to attacking those power
plants we do have, especially nuclear plants, rather than thinking
creatively about ensuring the kind of redundant power delivery that can
avoid blackouts. Yesterday's disruption was both inconvenient and costly,
but it will be cheap at the price if it awakens our politicians to act
before a larger power shortage strikes.
