Good stuff! Thanks for the heads-up.
Sorta on point, I work in electric power so brownouts is a subject of keen interest to me. We do indeed take for granted that the power is gonna be there when you flip the switch. People need to think about that ALOT, because keeping up with electricity demand is going to be a challenge for our society in the next 10 to 20 years.
So, I can't predict if that time will be sooner than later. I suppose as Mr. Satz has experienced last week, the time could be sooner. But rolling brownouts are going to be a part of future life because our voting public and politicians refuse to acknowledge this problem that is just around the corner.
The logic kinda goes like this...
A) Nobody wants a new nuclear plant...in fact, shut them all down.
B) Nobody wants a new coal plant...they mess up our air.
C) Everybody says we should use renewables...
D) NOBODY acknowledges that renewables cannot come even close to supplying energy demand.
E) EVERYBODY blames power companys when they can't get their power.
It's easy to blame the electric companys when brown-outs occur. But our industry has been saying for many years now that brownouts are on the horizon, yet we can't get the plants built, in large part, because of environmental lawmaking and special interest group lawsuits. In fact, on point with the above post, the people of NYC are trying their hardest to shut down their biggest supplier of power...the Indian Point Nuke station, which is about 30 miles from downtown. Wanna bet that many thousands are also complaining loudly (probably some with No Nukes stickers on their cars) to their electric companys about the brownouts!
I'm not suggesting that environmental laws shouldn't exist, but I _AM_ suggesting that we need to strike balances between societal needs and ideals. Big business is not all bad. So, IMHO, brownouts are a result of the lack of balance and I think it might get worse (with more electric cars, more conversions away from using gas) before the consuming public really understands the magnitude of the issue.
Anyway, I didn't really intend for this response to be a political lightning rod for greens against nukes.
So, to get back on the subject at hand, I'd like to suggest is that equipping yourself for brownouts is something that people are really gonna need to start considering more and more in the future.