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Is America's Power Grid an Antiquated System?
Aired August 15, 2003 - 15:04 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: Now the Bush administration gave the go- ahead today for New York to draw electricity if necessary from a transmission line running across the Long Island Sound into Connecticut. In California today, the president promised more federal action.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We will view this rolling blackout as a wake-up call. A wake-up call for the need to modernize our electricity delivery systems. And we'll respond.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: The president says a wake-up call. House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Billy Tauzin says he's launching an investigation of the blackout because he says, "Our economy and our way of life are at stake."
The outage is ringing alarm bells about America's aging power grid. Let's bring now into the discussion, our Kathleen Koch here in Washington. Kathleen, is that what people think it is, simply, an antique system?
KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's what President Bush said today. He called it antiquated. There are others who are saying that we are a superpower with a third world power grid. But John, the consensus definitely is that the nation's power grid is certainly stretched to its limits.
Much of the problem of course is demand for power. That' has gone up 30 percent over the past 10 years, while transmission capacity has increased just 15 percent. Deregulation was supposed to improve things, and it did boost competition, but it is at the same time discouraged investment and infrastructure in transmission lines and expensive new power plants.
So the system is limping along on technology that has been around for 100 years; very few new innovations. Experts say that more problems came along when utilities began moving power, not just to neighbors, but to distant regions of the grid.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LLEWELLYN KING, "THE ENERGY DAILY": Suddenly, these (UNINTELLIGIBLE) became very, very, very stressed. And they remained stressed. And everybody knows -- everybody in the industry knows that they are stressed. The administration has known that they're stressed. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which is trying to do something about it.
And then of course you get us. We don't want in our backyard. We don't want it even in their backyard. We want it somewhere else. And that has made building new reliable transmission very difficult.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KOCH: But energy experts say that because of this massive blackout, all of that will now have to change. Pressure will be on to push through new power lines, new transmission lines, new power plants over local, regional, even state objections. Also to move forward with projects despite environmental concerns. But certainly for now the system does remain very vulnerable, and improvements will not come quickly or cheaply -- John.
KING: Well, Kathleen, the president said today on the one hand this is a wake-up call, on the other hand he said he has been talking about this for a long time. If the president has been talking about it for a long time, his party controls the Congress, why has nothing been done?
KOCH: Well, John, the previous administration has been talking about it, as well as Energy Secretary Bill Richardson under President Clinton, again, was going on and on about these problems. But it's a very difficult problem. And, as a matter of fact, a group called the North American Electric Reliability Council, that puts out an assessment every single summer of the most vulnerable points, it's assessment this summer that I have in my hand, it says that the areas of concerns were southwestern Connecticut, New York City, Long Island. It was also worried about Ontario and Michigan. So this doesn't come as a surprise, but just getting action takes time and takes money.
KING: Kathleen Koch here in Washington, thank you very much.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired August 15, 2003 - 15:04 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: Now the Bush administration gave the go- ahead today for New York to draw electricity if necessary from a transmission line running across the Long Island Sound into Connecticut. In California today, the president promised more federal action.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We will view this rolling blackout as a wake-up call. A wake-up call for the need to modernize our electricity delivery systems. And we'll respond.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: The president says a wake-up call. House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Billy Tauzin says he's launching an investigation of the blackout because he says, "Our economy and our way of life are at stake."
The outage is ringing alarm bells about America's aging power grid. Let's bring now into the discussion, our Kathleen Koch here in Washington. Kathleen, is that what people think it is, simply, an antique system?
KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's what President Bush said today. He called it antiquated. There are others who are saying that we are a superpower with a third world power grid. But John, the consensus definitely is that the nation's power grid is certainly stretched to its limits.
Much of the problem of course is demand for power. That' has gone up 30 percent over the past 10 years, while transmission capacity has increased just 15 percent. Deregulation was supposed to improve things, and it did boost competition, but it is at the same time discouraged investment and infrastructure in transmission lines and expensive new power plants.
So the system is limping along on technology that has been around for 100 years; very few new innovations. Experts say that more problems came along when utilities began moving power, not just to neighbors, but to distant regions of the grid.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LLEWELLYN KING, "THE ENERGY DAILY": Suddenly, these (UNINTELLIGIBLE) became very, very, very stressed. And they remained stressed. And everybody knows -- everybody in the industry knows that they are stressed. The administration has known that they're stressed. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which is trying to do something about it.
And then of course you get us. We don't want in our backyard. We don't want it even in their backyard. We want it somewhere else. And that has made building new reliable transmission very difficult.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KOCH: But energy experts say that because of this massive blackout, all of that will now have to change. Pressure will be on to push through new power lines, new transmission lines, new power plants over local, regional, even state objections. Also to move forward with projects despite environmental concerns. But certainly for now the system does remain very vulnerable, and improvements will not come quickly or cheaply -- John.
KING: Well, Kathleen, the president said today on the one hand this is a wake-up call, on the other hand he said he has been talking about this for a long time. If the president has been talking about it for a long time, his party controls the Congress, why has nothing been done?
KOCH: Well, John, the previous administration has been talking about it, as well as Energy Secretary Bill Richardson under President Clinton, again, was going on and on about these problems. But it's a very difficult problem. And, as a matter of fact, a group called the North American Electric Reliability Council, that puts out an assessment every single summer of the most vulnerable points, it's assessment this summer that I have in my hand, it says that the areas of concerns were southwestern Connecticut, New York City, Long Island. It was also worried about Ontario and Michigan. So this doesn't come as a surprise, but just getting action takes time and takes money.
KING: Kathleen Koch here in Washington, thank you very much.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
