Here in Ontario, the system isn't up to full load yet. Indeed, we've been warned that blackouts could still occur at any time if demand spikes too high. Time to dive back into the issues the blackout raised, via 3 excellent articles that offer important background and points of view.
* We'll start with M. Simon, a semi-regular guest-blogger here. His Sierra Times article "Power and Control" offers a point of view on the causes that hasn't been heard much. LSSDLDT(Large Scale, Short Duration, Long Distance Transients) may in fact be the key to what happened. His article is also a great conceptual primer on how the pieces of the power grid all fit together.
* Rob Sama of samaBlog "...researched the power industry and the issues surrounding it, compiling with the help of an assistant, a several hundred page compendium on the industry, it's history, it's issues, and the deregulation movement...." Which led to this missiveabout the industry's history, its issues, and potential restructuring (Hat tip: Instapundit). Keep reading into the comments section, and the follow-up adds more.
* How easy would it be for terrorists to shut down the power grid? DefenseTech offers some thoughts.
Mr. Sama gets so much so wrong.
You can read some of my objections in the comments section in both of his articles.
What is LSSDLDT?
Should work as a roll-over for your mouse. What you called a "large scale, short duration, long distance transient."
I use Netscape 7.1 - it doesn't work. You might want to chek with Den Beste as his roll overs didn't work at first either.
I have responded.
Simon, you did good work there. Unfortunately, the misconceptions about power generation are so ubiquitous that its hard to keep up the good fight. And more unfortunately, misconceptions such as Mr. Sama's - together with the demogogery we see such as Richardson's - will distort the political debate and we will get a counter-productive "solution" from Congress.