FEW technological failures have been as widely predicted as the power cut to 50 million people in the north-eastern US and Ontario last week. Experts have repeatedly warned of problems with the ageing North American power grid. Its capacity has expanded little while the amount of power it is being asked to carry has soared, leaving safety margins razor-thin.
Alarm bells sounded in government last year when the National Transmission Grid Study, commissioned by the US Department of Energy, warned that North America’s limited grid capacity increased the risk of blackouts. The main reason is that the transmission system is…
