Expert Warns of More Summer Blackouts

Jun 04 - United Press International

With summer nearing, the United States has done little to avoid a repeat of last August's power failure and the Northeast blackout, an expert says.

Legislative steps needed to improve and enforce compliance with standards of reliability for electrical power transmission have been blocked by politics that has stalled the energy bill in Congress, says George Gross, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

As the mega blackout last Aug. 14 made amply clear, the reliability of our electricity infrastructure is a problem that must be tackled on a national basis due to the widespread interconnections between power systems, he said.

But so far, there are insufficient numbers of legislators who have stepped up to the plate in Washington and said, 'Pass this piece of legislation on its own, so that the necessary upgrades to the transmission system can begin and violators of standards are dealt with forcefully.'

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