Guest editorial: The price of preventing a blackout

The branches along poorly trimmed right-of-ways caused three power lines in Ohio to short out. From then on, according to the report of the official inquiry, it became a case of what can go wrong will go wrong.

FirstEnergy Corp.'s alarm system failed and so did the computer monitoring it. Then the backup computer malfunctioned. There followed a series of errors by the technicians monitoring the system that might have been due in part to poor training. The technicians also failed to notify other power companies.

After four hours of misjudgments and miscues, the failure cascaded and 50 million were suddenly without power.

"This blackout was largely preventable," said Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, co-chairman of the inquiry along with Canada's minister of Natural Resources. We trust that the government and the industry will now take the necessary steps to prevent another such blackout.

But there is always a political component to these matters.

"This report only reinforces the urgent need to complete action on the comprehensive energy bill," said House Energy Committee chairman Billy Tauzin, R-La., one of the lawmakers charged with getting the bill passed.

That bill contains mandatory reliability standards for power grids, which indeed might have averted this summer's blackout.

But the bill also contains $25.7 billion in tax breaks and subsidies for energy companies and agribiz plus a generous sprinkling of goodies for individual lawmakers.

That seems like a lot of money to solve a problem that could have been prevented by well-oiled chainsaws and well maintained computers.