How to avoid the next blackout: Make the grid smarter. As instant pundits were too quick to point out last week, investment in grid assets has declined steadily in recent decades, while electricity demand has risen. Tangled regulatory reasons are to blame, and new investment in grid hardware is now urgently needed. But the grid…
The New York Sun It will happen again. The mayor, the governor, and congressional committees will all hold hearings, and point fingers, while the engineers will, soon enough, find a technical explanation for what caused the massive August 14 black-out. There will be all sorts of sonorous pronouncements about how utilities ought to be regulated…
Electricity occupies a uniquely important role in the infrastructure of modern society. A complete loss of power shuts down telephone switches, wireless cell towers, bank computers, E911 operator centers, police communication networks, hospital emergency rooms, air traffic control, street lights, and the electrically actuated valves and pumps that move water, oil, and gas, along with…
Mark P. Mills and Peter W. Huber City Journal In transit across Manhattan on any given day are some 4 million letters, 3 million people, half a million motor vehicles and their contents, and half a million parcels—any of which may be carrying something lethal. Step by step, cities like New York must now learn…
Peter W. Huber & Mark P. Mills The materials and quantum phenomena that brought us digital information are now ushering in a new age of digital power. They extract, process, and use energy in altogether new ways. They pack far more power, into far less space. They control high-power streams of electrons and photons at…
Mark Mills and Peter Huber Wall Street Journal Messrs. Mills and Huber are co-authors of the Digital Power Report. Mr. Huber is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Enron got one thing right. New technology is dramatically changing the energy business, especially electricity. Unfortunately for its investors, the new technology isn't the one Enron…
