Newslinks: November 16th, 2012

Many of you on the Twitter-verse have seen me rage about the energy infrastructure we have and how money should go to invest it.
Roughly 500,000 Americans lose power for at least 2 hours EVERY SINGLE DAY.
The average substation transformer is 42 years old.  The expected life span of them? 40 years.
70% of the largest high-voltage power transformers, those that weigh up to 800,000 pounds, are more than 25 years old and thus subject to increased risk of failure.  Replacing one of these transformers can take up to twenty months.
Our system is so antiquated and overloaded that when there's an issue it spreads beyond the area.  The June Derecho which did quite a bit of wind damage from Indian through the Appalachians to DC saw other areas out of power for longer than others.  Such as suburban Maryland.  It was not hit harder, but the damage it sustained triggered multiple failures down the line.
For a better example, one of which many of you are too young for, was the Ohio Failure of 2003.  Line failures in Northeastern Ohio darkened a 1,900 square mile area.  265 power plants went offline. Cost nearly $6B, nearly 100 people died and 50 million people in the dark for four days.
We need to put serious money into this. It is a National Security AND Human Rights issue.  Yet it's always kicked down the road and every year it gets worse.