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I am a utility power engineer who has worked twenty-four years in this industry, in design, operations, planning and merchant departments. It is important to recognize a few things:

1. As some experts quoted here note, this is likely the result of a few coincidental events. Faults happen routinely; generators are knocked off-line routinely; most people are entirely unaware because in and of themselves such events should not have such an impact. Least likely reason - and I understand and recognize fully the age of the system - is the age of the system. The smartest people realize that we are some time away from determining exactly what happened. Only the clowns (like Hillary) shoot their mouths off prematurely.

2. It could have been worse. When things do go wrong, parts of the system - including many large generators and loads - take care of themselves by disconnecting. As much as we'd like it all to stick together, if it hangs too tight, it can result in permanently damaged equipment. It may take days to get isolated parts of this system up and running again; but if a lot of equipment is damaged, THAT is a real disaster, because you cannot put the broken pieces back together in days.

3. This kind of event shouldn't happen, but as much as we like to believe we can prevent such things from ever happening, that is fantasy. How many contingencies must you plan for to ensure that it will "never" happen? The cost of meeting those contingencies grows exponentially. As the Romans noted long ago, "effluvia happens".

4. You may go back to sleep, but nobody in this industry - including the professor - is going to be complacent about such an event. Prof. Kezunovic is precisely correct regarding the most immediate and practical remedy.

5. The system is always more secure with sources close to the loads. FERC, in its infinite lack-of-wisdom has seen fit to turn the system on its ear - change entirely the way it is used from the way it was designed to be used - encouraging deliveries from longer distances while totally ignoring the inevitable impact.

6. One might imagine that the "solution" is beefing up the grid. FERC, in its infinite lack-of-wisdom has seen fit to IGNORE any incentive to reinforce transmission, and has instead effectively appropriated transmission assets.

7. Just beefing up the grid is not a solution. It is a bandaid. It would further encourage deliveries over longer distances. FERC, in its infinite lack-of-wisdom has seen fit to ensure that, by railing against any connection between the cost of delivery and the distance of delivery.

8. Beefing up the transmission system ultimately asks you, in fly-over country, to pay for and make room in your backyards for that grid, so that those in New York City (e.g.) can shut down construction of power plants (e.g. Shoreham) in their backyard - where they BELONG. (See item 5 & other posting regarding Florida's boast.)

9. One might imagine that the solution is adding more generating capacity. In a competitive market with regulated rates [Does that makes sense to you? Me neither.], where the opportunity for returns on marginal capacity is limited, that's often hard to justify, too. It is boom and bust in a business that is capital intensive and requires long-range planning.

10. Margins have dwindled. This is the inevitable consequence of turning electricity into a competitive commodity, when it is like no other. You may offer incentives, but there is still tremendous uncertainty regarding return on investment in a market wherein "freedom" is what FERC says it is...today. You may establish requirements, but before you know it, it swiftly becomes a RE-regulated, federally-regulated business and consumer rates rise to support those old margins - the same ones that consumer groups complained about - and before you know it your asking yourself, "Now, how is this saving me money?"

You made a lot of good points. I agree that if sources were coser to loads, anything happening would affect smaller areas. I think the long distance delivery is driven by the environmental rules and difficulties of building new power plants and so on.

I also agree that just "strengthening the grid", whatever that actually means in implementation is a band aid.

I personally think they need to look at immediate, short term and longer term solution, where the long term solution should be a fresh look.

For immediate solution, better monitoring certainlly would be a good start, but then they should look at all the "fail-safe" contingencies which were built into the system, supposedly, which themselves failed and correct those as a near term solution.

You may not be able to prevent everything, but what happened should have been able to be contained better. I can see that generator turn themselves off automatically to protect themselves, but frying one generator in a small area would still be preferable to having a hundred of them being turned off, impacting so many people.

I've had blackouts, when something happened to a transformer or generator, then a little later they were able to bring in power from somewhere else, a small area was affected for a few hours and that was it. I think this is more the way the system should work.

True enough.

We foolishly loose more power to long distance and our stupid 120volt mentality than we consume. It is a undeniable fact.

Oh well! I even heard the D/C morons come out of their closet as a result of this debacle.

When you get right down to it, the power plants are ok, power is largely restored and the whiners cannot see the forrest because the trees are in the way as usual.

Something really destabilized the grid and it was not just the result of some failed lines. There must be a engineer boo boo or some dirty power was pushed into the grid by a large generator someplace and no body is fessing up.

I would simply look for a generator that is still down in a week and you have the culprit in hand.(he would have some damage)