>From Fortune magazine, David Stipp, 3/01: This is reposted from
alt.solar.photovoltaic and is about the decaying, unattended
electrical grid in California. (excerpt from story)
A seminal tract published in 1968 by biologist Garrett Hardin, "The Tragedy of the Commons," best sums up what is going wrong. Hardin described how herdsmen sharing a pasture, or common, inevitably spoil it by quite rationally enlarging their flocks--a herdsman's gain from adding an animal goes entirely to him, while the cost is borne by everyone using the common.
For decades, utilities tended the grid in a collaborative way, knowing they could recoup the costs in their rate bases. Now they're becoming rival electron herders, less willing to invest in the wiry commons--especially given uncertainty about how transmission assets will be divvied up as deregulation unfolds. Says John F. Hauer, a senior scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash., who recently served on two federal teams that analyzed major blackouts: Utilities' strategy increasingly has been "to accept more risk and not spend money on problems until they occur."