Living in a society increasingly dependent on computers and complex technologies can be frustrating, even frightening. The automated teller machines at the bank go down. The computer at work crashes. The lights go out, leaving you stranded in an elevator or at home without air conditioning.
Most of us have experienced technology’s fallibility. Yet when the nightmares cascade–when airplanes fall from the sky, computer networks fail and blackouts hit entire regions–people wonder whether they’ve misplaced their trust and whether they’re facing increasingly catastrophic failures.
To be sure, technology isn’t fail-safe. And as engineering systems and machines become more complex and interconnected, the chances increase for more technical problems and unintended consequences. But that doesn’t mean that technology is evil; on the contrary, its failings often are due to human error.
Take, for example, the second major power failure within six weeks to create chaos for millions of people in the West. It began when sagging lines touched some trees in Oregon, triggering a series of short circuits on the country’s biggest regional power grid. Four million customers in nine states lost power, and utilities responded in low-tech fashion by trimming trees.
Regions have become susceptible to such blackouts because of federally mandated competition and industry deregulation, not technical deficiencies. In 1978, Congress allowed independent power producers to generate power and compete with public utilities. Earlier this year, federal regulators ordered utilities to open up their transmission systems to outside providers of wholesale electricity.
As a result, more players are moving greater amounts of power over transmission lines for longer distances. If a line goes down in Oregon and backup supplies aren’t available and nearby utilities aren’t warned, other lines can become overloaded, triggering a rapid succession of shutdowns.
The grids aren’t being run beyond their technical capacities, but there’s a clear need for closer supervision and cooperation in each region, as well as for more investment in maintenance and equipment. In the Midwest, Commonwealth Edison and other utilities favor creating an independent service operator–a regional traffic cop to operate and control power flows and prevent system overloads.
Such a step is needed to ensure reliability. But it’s a solution to a problem created by deregulation and the transition to competition, not a failure of technology.
