America's Outdated Power Grid
City Journal Audio
Manhattan Institute
4.7 • 657 Ratings
🗓️ 14 August 2019
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
James B. Meigs joins Seth Barron to discuss last month's power blackout in Manhattan, California's self-inflicted energy crisis, and potential energy sources for the future.
"As power outages go," Meigs writes, "the Broadway Blackout of 2019 was pretty modest." But energy reliability is becoming an issue in states across the country. California's largest power supplier, Meigs reports, recently announced that it will begin shutting down parts of the grid to help reduce the risk of wildfires.
Energy problems could get worse as states adopt strict mandates and replace today's power sources with unreliable green alternatives. The Broadway blackout and California's fire-prevention strategy illustrate the same reality: the nation's energy infrastructure is outdated, and upgrading it will require a huge investment.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to Ten Blocks, the podcast of City Journal. |
| 0:03.7 | This is your host for today, Seth Barron, Associate Editor of City Journal. |
| 0:08.5 | After the blackout last month that affected a large swath of Manhattan, New York's energy |
| 0:13.3 | infrastructure became a hot question. |
| 0:16.4 | Joining me today to discuss that issue and other questions related to energy generally is city journal contributor |
| 0:22.9 | James Miggs. Jim was for many years the editor of popular mechanics and writes widely about science, |
| 0:30.0 | technology, and culture. We'll be back with Jim after a short break. |
| 0:34.2 | We'll be back with Jim after a short break. |
| 0:49.3 | Jim, thanks for coming on the podcast. Oh, it's great to be back. |
| 0:51.3 | So the recent blackout was caused perhaps by an overheated transformer. |
| 0:58.0 | Now, how can we fix the grid so it delivers steady supplies of electricity without interruption? |
| 1:05.0 | Well, we've always had blackouts, you know, and we will never have a grid that is 100% failure-free. Those transformers fail |
| 1:13.3 | all the time. Usually, the grid is set up so that they can just route around the problem. |
| 1:18.9 | You'd be amazed at how many minor problems that could be major problems happen, you know, |
| 1:24.0 | every week that Con Ed and other utilities deal with. But my worry is that these challenges |
| 1:29.6 | are getting harder and certain government policies are making it harder for the utilities to cope |
| 1:34.9 | with the ordinary wear and tear on the system. |
| 1:38.5 | Well, what kind of policies? |
| 1:40.0 | Well, there's a few things. One is the green energy policies that are being pushed, certainly |
| 1:46.7 | in New York State by Governor Cuomo. And California is another example, which on their face |
| 1:53.7 | aren't necessarily bad ideas, but the people who are pushing to have, say, 50% of electricity |
| 2:00.1 | come from renewable sources, as Governor Cuomo |
... |
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