ENERGY WITHOUT A NET

摘要

The now infamous blackout of august 2003 illustrated in spectacular fashion how dependent the economy is on the smooth, reliable operation of traditional grid-supplied power. The economic cost of the outage, which shut down power across parts of eight states in the Midwest and Northeast, and parts of Canada, was estimated at $4.5 billion to $10 billion. For manufacturers, the costs were dear. Automotive plants and auto suppliers were shut down in Michigan, Ohio and Ontario. Steel plants were knocked offline for days, and disruptions to production were announced throughout the affected areas. A post-outage survey conducted by the Ohio Manufacturers' Association (OMA) found that some 12,300 Ohio manufacturing companies were impacted by the blackout.