For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.It is a little-understood component of electricity, so arcane that engineers sometimes call it "imaginary power." But it was a shortage of this elusive force, largely unknown and unappreciated by the general public but critical to the operation of the nation's electrical grid, that experts now say probably set off the largest blackout in North American history on Aug. 14. Imaginary power, known to scientists as reactive power, cannot turn on lights or run toasters. Yet power plants and lines need it to create the conditions that allow hundreds of thousands of...