edification for you all (Score 1)

I've spent a great deal of time engaged in this area. The problem is that the old power companies won't change unless they have to (direct from the mouths of their CEO's). Why? They're a regulated entity and 80 year old Mrs. Smith expects her power to be there. If a manual switch works, they aren't changing it due to the risk of interrupting Mrs. Smith's power and her calling the state PUC to complain. Stupid, but it's the fact. Small-scale, renewable power is a reality. In fact, individual homes can even put power back on to the grid. The problem is that it will involve upgrades by the power companies. Right now, you can buy a fuel cell for your home, but it won't play with your local provider. 99% of power facilities still use manual switches, when automated ones are available. They use the phone to resolve transimission issues or e-mail. In the case of the NE power outage, they were working to resolve a power issue that happend 3 hours ago, meanwhile the entire grid was starting to cascade. I have a lengthy paper on what caused the blackouts. The bottom line is that the grid and individual power operators need to upgrade their systems dramatically, but won't do it unless someone puts a gun to their head. The cause of the power outages (past and future) is bureaucracy, pure and simple.