What has again been demonstrated is that the US has a third-world power system. Analysts at Credit Suisse First Boston point out that capital investment in the US transmission network has been broadly the same as capital investment in the UK, despite the fact that US demand is 10 times greater.
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At the company where I'm consulting there's an old-timer, pulled from retirement because of his deep understanding of the grid's ins and outs, who said almost precisely this last week.
Add in comments from my wife (from S. Korea) and various friends and associates from Europe and Asia who are constantly amazed at the technical backwardness of big parts of the US telecommunications infrastructure (my wife had advanced cell phone system features available back home a decade ago) and you get the sense that we're buying second rate and third rate tech at first rate prices.
Yes, quite a superpower.
DRM
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