This is CBS. I in the world. I'm John Batcher. Electricity. We take it for granted

until it stops. Here in the Northeast there's always a concern about thunderstorms, not

necessarily above you, somewhere in the county. That means that somewhere a tree is going

to fall and somewhere the power is going to go out. Electricity. I learned from Bud

Weinstein writing at the New Publication, the messenger, that electricity is now a national

concern. That's right. We have no confidence right now according to those in authority

that the American electricity grid is substantial enough to get through what is coming towards

us said to be a warmer than usual summer. It may be that we're what we're looking at as

El Nino warm and dry. That's a prediction out of the Pacific. But according to the North

American electrical reliability corporation, resources should be adequate to meet normal

summer peak demand. But if summer temperatures spike and become more widespread, the US,

West, Midwest, Texas and Southeast United States, New England and Ontario may experience

resourced shortfalls. Why are we in this condition? What is to be done? But a very good

evening to you. Thank you for this. We got here because once upon a time we had over

a thousand coal fired electric generating plants. Now I read according to your reporting

we have just over 200. And that reduction explains a lot about why we don't have confidence

getting through the summer. What is base load? What does that mean by good evening to you?

Good evening, John. Base load power refers to those generating sources, nuclear, large

gas plants, coal that are on 24 seven. They operate around the clock and they provide huge

numbers billions of electrons into the nation's power grid. And as you mentioned, what's happened

over the past decade is we've seen a lot of these base load plants taken off line, not

just coal plants, but almost 20 nuclear plants have also been taken off line. What we've done

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