German power grid has outages at an average rate of 21 minutes

[rdean]

Congratulations: If you're reading this, you have electricity. Unfortunately, more than 3 million Americans this weekend couldn't join you. The sweltering heat wave that roasted the eastern United States was accompanied by terrible storms that have knocked out power lines up and down the seaboard.

While you enjoy your air conditioning, you might want to take a minute to consider: Why do Americans tolerate such outages?

Want to keep Electric Power on? - CNN

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Energy Risks - the dangers of power cuts and blackouts

Many companies are unprepared for business disruptions caused by power blackouts, and are often unaware of the true costs and impact that they can have on their operations.

While the majority of power failures from national grids last only a few hours, some blackouts can last days or even weeks, completely shutting down production at companies and critical infrastructures such as telecommunication networks, financial services, water supplies and hospitals.

Furthermore, it is likely that power blackouts will become more frequent owing to the lack of incentives to invest in aged national grid infrastructures in Europe and the US, as well as the fact that energy from decentralized, “volatile” renewable sources is not well aligned to work on electricity grids that were designed 50 or 60 years ago. Also, as more and more grids are interconnected, a blackout in one region can trigger a domino effect that could result in supra-regional blackouts.

Power outage risks and impact on business

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If Republicans don't care about the "people", then do it for the companies. They're "people" too.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlPQkd_AA6c]Romney: Corporations Are People, My Friend. - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Euro]

Congratulations: If you're reading this, you have electricity. Unfortunately, more than 3 million Americans this weekend couldn't join you. The sweltering heat wave that roasted the eastern United States was accompanied by terrible storms that have knocked out power lines up and down the seaboard.

While you enjoy your air conditioning, you might want to take a minute to consider: Why do Americans tolerate such outages?

Want to keep Electric Power on? - CNN

-----------------------------------------------

Energy Risks - the dangers of power cuts and blackouts

Many companies are unprepared for business disruptions caused by power blackouts, and are often unaware of the true costs and impact that they can have on their operations.

While the majority of power failures from national grids last only a few hours, some blackouts can last days or even weeks, completely shutting down production at companies and critical infrastructures such as telecommunication networks, financial services, water supplies and hospitals.

Furthermore, it is likely that power blackouts will become more frequent owing to the lack of incentives to invest in aged national grid infrastructures in Europe and the US, as well as the fact that energy from decentralized, “volatile” renewable sources is not well aligned to work on electricity grids that were designed 50 or 60 years ago. Also, as more and more grids are interconnected, a blackout in one region can trigger a domino effect that could result in supra-regional blackouts.

Power outage risks and impact on business

----------------------------------------------------------------

If Republicans don't care about the "people", then do it for the companies. They're "people" too.

Romney: Corporations Are People, My Friend. - YouTube

Here the customer gets huge amounts of money back if their is a black-out, the power companies are penalized if their are black-outs so they have to invest. But we’ve started up investing huge sums the latesr years in power grids.
You also need highly skilled labour to build power grids. Engineers and specially trained electricians. I dont know if you have a regulator in USA on the power companies that are private monopolies?

You can not become rich by saving money.

Those engineers that built power grids in 60s and 70s are now probobaly about to be retired so you need to produce more engineers.

But you need a regulator to control the power companies and tell them what to do. If not they’ll only think short term profitt and not invest for the future.