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COUNTDOWN (443 DAYS) TO VICTORY '04 -- UPDATE from BUSH- Cheney '04 and NEWS from the DEMOCRAT CANDIDATES on RECALL The President and Congress are on the summer recess for the month of August so we decided to take some time off with these Countdown Threads as we prepare for the upcoming Presidential election. Today we are back with an Update from Bush-Cheney '04 along with information on the what the Democrat candidates are doing! ************************* TODAY'S ACTION ITEM! Please sign up today to get your own personal email of Bush-Cheney '04 updates. While at Bush-Cheney '04, sign up...

Power grids and blackouts Yep, the lights went out for 50 million people yesterday, and we still don't really know why it happened. Canada blames a fault in our system; we blame a fault in Canada's system, or a bad transmission line in the Midwest, but we're all sure it wasn't a terrorist. Why? Just because nothing blew up? Let's try a little experiment, change the word terror to sabotage. Sound any more likely now? The leading theory on the root cause of the failure, at least, the leading theory as I rode in to work this morning, was the...

The Terror Question No Signs of Deliberate Attack in Blackout, But Possibility Not Ruled Out Aug. 15— Despite official assurances to the contrary, could terrorists have exploited a vulnerable power grid to cause Thursday's massive blackout? The cause of the failure remains a mystery, as power was gradually returning from the largest-ever blackout in the nation's history, affecting some 50 million people in areas from Michigan to New York. And while there is no indication the power grid was sabotaged, some experts caution it is too soon to rule out any possible explanation — including cyber-terror. "Anybody who says that...

By David Morgan NEW YORK (Reuters) - Amid sweltering heat, the United States and Canada slowly recovered from the largest power outage in North American history on Friday, with President Bush calling the blackout a "wake-up call" to fix an antiquated electricity grid. The White House said the United States and Canada would set up a joint task force to determine the cause of the blackout, which hit tens of millions of people in New York, Detroit, Cleveland, Ottawa, Toronto and other cities. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said on Friday evening that power had been restored to 85 percent...

NEW YORK (AP) - Scientists and engineers with the National Research Council warned the White House and Congress about the vulnerability of the power grid as recently as November, saying nationwide weaknesses needed to be repaired - and fast. Little has been done, despite a chorus of experts who've pushed since well before Sept. 11 to fix a grid that's riddled with threadbare links and plagued by chronic shortages. "The power grid has not gotten much more than important conversations since Sept. 11," said Paul Gilbert, a member of the National Academy of Engineering, which worked on the report for...

(AP) - The largest power blackout in North American history prompted new calls Friday for overhauling the U.S. electricity system. Investigators said the power disruptions likely began in the Midwest but they have yet to pinpoint the cause. They are now focusing on a massive electrical grid that encircles Lake Erie, moving power from New York to the Detroit area, into Canada and back to New York state. There had been problems with the transmission loop in the past, officials said. The head of the North American Reliability Council, who earlier said northern Ohio may have been the flashpoint, later...

------------------------------------------------------------------------ How Russia Maintains a Reliable Power Grid By Dr. Vladimir Semenov, Central Dispatching Office of the United Power System, Russia Transmission & Distribution World, Apr 1, 1997 The reliability of the Russian interconnected transmission system benefits from central control and standardized protection. Currently, the United Power System (UPS) comprises 73 regional power systems (RPS), 66 of which are incorporated into the UPS of Russia. The Amurskaja, Khabarovskaja and Dalne-vostochnaja RPS systems operate in parallel, forming the interconnected system of East Russia. Further east, four regional power systems still continue to operate in isolation. Approximately, 94% of the country's generating plant...

<p>While the cascading blackouts that rolled west from New York took out close neighbors Erie, Akron and Cleveland, they stopped short of Pittsburgh.</p> <p>Southwestern Pennsylvania was spared largely because it's on a different power transmission system and its equipment knew when to shut itself off.</p>

TORONTO (CP) - A massive power outage that blacked out most of Ontario and several states in the northeastern United States on Thursday afternoon showed the deep interdependence of the North American power system. Canada trades significant quantities of electricity with the United States. Quebec is a major exporter to the northeast United States and together with Newfoundland and Labrador plans to make important expansions in electricity generating capacity. And the electricity grids in Canada and the U.S. link at 37 major points. Exports represent approximately seven per cent to 10 per cent of total Canadian generation and 1.2 per...

National Grid Transco plc is an international energy delivery business, whose principal activities are in the regulated electricity and gas industries. We are the largest investor-owned utility in the UK, where we own and operate the high-voltage electricity transmission network in England and Wales, and Britain's natural gas transportation system. We are one of the top ten electricity companies in the US, with the largest electricity transmission and distribution network in the New England/New York region, and also operate a gas distribution network in New York. Other electricity interests include interconnectors in the UK, US and Australia, and joint venture...

<p>August 15, 2003 -- Officials were still puzzling last night over the cause of the yesterday's massive blackout that stretched from Ottawa to New Jersey and from Cleveland to Long Island.</p> <p>Canadian officials said the outage was caused when lightning struck a power generating plant on the U.S. side of Niagara Falls, but officials on this side of the border quickly disputed the claim.</p>

As far as we know, no one has ever deliberately hacked into the U.S. electrical grid and pulled the plug on millions or even thousands of people. Just as on Sept. 10, 2001, no one had ever deliberately crashed a jet airliner into a skyscraper. Is the power grid vulnerable to cyberattack? What about natural gas pipelines, nuclear plants, and water systems? Or refineries and other industrial facilities that run on similar Internet-enabled digital control systems? Could a terrorist or disgruntled employee cause lethal accidents and millions of dollars of damage? What about a bored 14-year-old? "Are we vulnerable?" asked...

BOULDER, COLORADO - Energy experts have been warning about large-scale blackouts in North America since the early eighties. Bill Browning of the Rocky Mountain Institute in Colorado says a report for the U.S. Pentagon in 1982 cautioned the American government about the fragility of the power grid system in North America. The institute is an energy think tank. Browning runs the green development section. "Everyone is pulling power and there's lots of big stations on the grid. All you need is one tenuous problem and it cascades throughout," Browning told CBC News Online. Other experts agree. "It's pretty close to...