Parts of the Midwest have reached record high temperatures on some days
this summer. That means more people are cranking their air
conditioners to full blast. Rebecca Williams reports the electric
industry says more needs to be done to handle increasing energy
demands:
Transcript
Parts of the Midwest have reached record high temperatures on some days
this summer. That means more people are cranking their air
conditioners to full blast. Rebecca Williams reports the electric
industry says more needs to be done to handle increasing energy
demands:
Hot summer days test the limits of our electric system.
Ed Legge is a spokesperson for the Edison Electric Institute, a power
company industry group. He says transmission systems in three parts of
the country are overburdened: the Northeast, the Mid-Atlantic and
southern California.
“They’re very congested, they’re very similar to a highway system
that’s got way more traffic on it than it was designed to have on it.”
A massive blackout four years ago left about 50 million people in the
dark.
Legge says to avoid future blackouts, new transmission lines and more
power generating capacity are needed.
More than 150 new coal-burning power plants are proposed around the
country, but the power companies and some environmentalists say we
could avoid building some of those plants if we cut our energy use.
For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.