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NEWS & LETTERS, OCTOBER 2003Myths and realities of the vast eastern blackoutby Franklin Dmitryev The blackout that spread from Ohio to New York to Ontario on Aug. 14 galvanized both environmentalists and anti-environmentalists. Most measures that politicians proposed would not have helped a bit. The Bush administration repeated what has been in its energy plan from day one: more production, more fossil fuel and nuclear power plants, more transmission lines--ignoring the fact that there is actually a glut of power in most of the country. Moreover, the blackout occurred on a day of only ordinary summer demand, so there’s no question of a lack of capacity. Talk of an “antiquated” or “third-world” power grid is an exaggeration, and adding transmission lines would make the system more complex and therefore probably more fragile. The one true statement from the Department of Energy was, “Consumers will have to foot the bill.” Free market fanatics claim that the blackout proves the need for more deregulation. In reality deregulation has allowed utilities to reduce their investments in transmission by hundreds of millions of dollars over the last several years. It has also meant layoffs of thousands of utility workers. For instance, Niagara-Mohawk Power failed to react adequately to the emergency, after having raised prices, laid off 800 workers in New York and slashed investment in the grid system it operates. At the same time, deregulation has spawned sales of huge amounts of power over long distances. This is like driving from New York to Colorado to go grocery shopping. The corresponding rise of traffic on transmission lines not only wastes electricity, but strains the system. While energy demand on the grid is up 35% in the last 10 years, wholesale transactions on the grid are up 400%. But unused capacity generates no profit, so network operators have pushed it to where little margin is left for emergencies. But those who chalk all the problems up to deregulation are mistaken. As a New York Assemblyman pointed out, major investments in transmission lines by the state and utilities ended in the 1970s, long before deregulation. The latter did not start the trend, but only served as a means to continue it. Underlying the lack of investment in infrastructure is the structural economic change manifested in the global economic crisis of the mid-1970s. The falling rate of profit has led to a relative fall in productive investment and desperate cost-cutting. Deregulation didn't come from a sudden attack of greed that capitalists had managed to repress for 40 years but rather from the drive to shore up the rate of profit by eliminating expenses for things like environmental protection, social benefits and infrastructure maintenance. In that light the fog of illusion begins to lift from solutions proposed from the Left, which rely on technology, market tuning, or state planning. A number of technical solutions for the grid’s problems have been put forward, mostly very sensible, and some, such as solar power and electronic switches, have been practical (if not cheap) for 30 years. Seldom is the question raised: Why haven't they been implemented? When it is, the answers tend to be like that of long-time anti-nuker Harvey Wasserman: “because the utility and fossil/nuke guys fund the politicians in power”--which lets off the hook the capitalist system, and overlooks the innate cost-cutting drive of contemporary crisis-ridden state-capitalism. Similarly, environmentalist Amory Lovins, believing that “The real cause is the overcentralized power grid,” advocates “letting all options compete fairly.” He forgets that free competition carries within it the seeds of monopoly and corruption. More political solutions include that of THE AMERICAN PROSPECT's Robert Kuttner, who stressed the state’s “crucial planning role,” and THE NATION's William Greider’s “demanding a new deal” whereby “the regulatory system can be repaired, restored, reformed.” When Greider asks, “Where are the left-liberal thinkers with new concepts?” it is clear that the new concepts are to be confined within a state-capitalist framework. But state planning and intervention are precisely what led to the proliferation of nuclear plants. The blackout is only the latest manifestation of capital’s drive to accumulate even at the expense of the very conditions of its continued existence--the infrastructure, the environment and human health. |
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