The lights are coming on, slowly, all over the Northeast and the Midwest and the parts of Canada. But the shock of the massive and crippling blackout is just beginning. Right now, power officials are still struggling to understand where it began, why it spread so rapidly, and how to prevent it from happening again.
Electric industry and government officials say they’ve known for years that the nation’s power grid is inadequate. But to fix it requires a lot of money and building new transmission towers and lines, which environmentalists and the NIMBY’s…the not-in-my-backyard types…don’t like. But no one wants to live without electricity. Shedding light on the blackout.
Guests:
William Hogan, Research Director of the Harvard Electricity Policy Group
Phil Giudice, energy analyst and managing director of Enernoc Inc.
Cynthia Gardner, spent last evening in Penn Station, New York City
Peter Behr, Financial reporter for the Washington Post
Steven Whitley, chief operating officer of Independent Systems Operators of New England, the organization that runs the New England power grid.