LONDON -- Electric power -- or lack of it -- is once again in the news. It is not just the millions of East Coast Americans and Canadians who have suffered with monster blackouts. Power cuts have become drearily regular in France, Japan, China, Spain, Italy, not to mention in struggling Iraq. And shortages are widely forecast to hit Britain as well this coming winter, especially if it is a really cold one.
Yet oddly enough, all these problems seem to have different immediate causes in different countries.
In the United States the problem has been lack of investment in a modern transmission system to bear the colossal loads. Spending money on reliable transmission grids is viewed as unprofitable by the American power companies.