Brittle Power- PARTS 1-3 (+Notes) - Natural Capitalism Solutions

The notes for Chapter 5 appear on page 352 of this pdf.Chapter FiveCase Study:The 1977 New YorkBlackoutThe failure of the main electric power grid in New York in July 1977 was notthe first or the largest to occur there. On 9 November 1965, a cascading powerfailure originating in a malfunctioning relay in Canada interrupted the electricalsupply of most of the Northeastern United States. Some thirty million peoplewere blacked out for anywhere from one to thirteen and one-half hours. A loadtotalling nearly forty-four thousand megawatts—twenty-three percent of the total1965 U.S. peak demand—was lost. 1 Only customers with isolated or emergencysystems had power: all telephone exchanges, most hospitals, a housing projectand two shopping centers in the middle of New York City, and some scatteredoffice buildings and factories. 2 Everyone else was plunged into darkness. Theutilities were shocked; the public was outraged. There were hearings, investigations,reports, and—supposedly—changes to ensure it could never happen again.On 13 July 1977, three days after the Chairman of Consolidated EdisonCompany of New York had said he could “guarantee” that a recurrence wasremote, 3 nearly nine million people were blacked out for five to twenty-five hoursthrough “a combination of natural events (lightning), equipment malfunctions,questionable system design features, and operating errors,” coupled with seriouslack of preparation to use available facilities to prevent complete failure. 4A complex, cascading failureGeography and operational circumstances laid the groundwork for theJuly 1977 blackout. Most cities import part of their power rather than generatingenough for their own needs within their own boundaries. New YorkCity, however, relies particularly heavily on imports of bulk power. Because itis much cheaper to take high-voltage power lines over land than under water,51