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Experts warn of another full-blown blackout in New York
Another full-blown blackout in New York is a question of when -- not if, according to utility experts who worry about the state's aging transmission system and a demand that could soon outstrip supply, local media reported Sunday.
The state's electricity is carried on transmission lines that have not seen overhauls or gotten any major help in more than 30 years. There is only a thin surplus of available electricity -- a peak capacity of 37,418 megawatts compared with a peak demand of 37,087 megawatts.
"I think obviously it could happen again," said Assemblyman Paul Tonko, chairman of his chamber's Energy Committee. "We've asked that question twice before and now we're asking it a third time."
Tonko said New York's is "one of the more aged" power systems in the nation that must be upgraded. Catastrophic outages, he said,have been narrowly averted in the past and Thursday's blackout happened when circumstances "lined up in a tragic sort of alignment."
At the peak of the outage, as much as 80 percent of the state was without power, he noted.
"Certainly one of the focuses of our investigation is going to be the investment, or disinvestment, in capital infrastructure andhuman infrastructure," Tonko said. "That's a gaping question that needs a response."
The New York Independent System Operator (NYISO), which managesthe state's electric grid, foresaw problems in a May 2003 report.
"New York has stayed just ahead of potential reliability problems for the past three years by utilizing stopgap measures and by driving the existing electrical infrastructure harder and harder," NYISO said in the report.
"Obviously, we have been encouraging additional transmission (capability) to be built," NYISO spokesman Ken Klapp said Saturday.
Then there is the intricate connection between New York, neighboring states and Canada. A fault somewhere in the system cantrip the kind of cascade that mowed down the Midwest and
NortheastThursday.
"Until we know what caused it, how can you say it couldn't happen again?" New York state governor George Pataki said at a Saturday morning news conference at a command center in Albany.
Some power industry sources, however, think otherwise.
Larry Eng, an alternate member of the New York State Reliability Council executive committee, said the chance of another blackout of this scope was "very rare" and would take an unusual confluence of events.
"However," he cautioned, "if the circumstances do not occur asdesigned then something like August 14 could occur."
William Clagett, a past chairman of New York State Reliability Council, rejected the idea that the American power grid is obsolete. "In spite of what you hear in some places and in the press about it being a Third World system, that's just plain baloney," he said. "The system serves more power to more people with more reliability than any country in the world. How can you call that Third World?"
Tonko said besides investment in the system, the state needs to take a "holistic approach" that could include using alternativeenergy sources and approving power plant siting regulations long stalled in the legislature.
Meanwhile, construction work continues on power-generating projects that will add between 2,500 and 3,500 megawatts of electricity to the state system. But plant proponents argue the amount is less than half what is needed to meet the state's demands over the next five years.
Colombian president escapes unscathed from rebel attack
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe escaped Sunday an attack carried out by suspected rebels at a village in northeast Colombia, the president's spokesman said.
The president's helicopter was shot at by machine guns when it arrived at the village of Granada in Antioquia state and the helicopter, with the president and his wife aboard, turned immediately back to the town of Rionegro, spokesman Ricardo Galan said.
According to the spokesman, no one was injured and the president returned to his scheduled destination after security in the area was under control.
The president attended an event to mark the reconstruction of the village, which was devastated by rebels in December 2002.
Colombian authorities held rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) accountable for this attack. The guerrilla group is also blamed for several previous attempts to kill the president.
The 17,000-strong FARC is the largest rebel group in Colombia, which has been ravaged by a four-decade-long civil war, and an average of 3,500 people, most of them civilians, are killed every year in the conflict.
Britain ranks 10th as target for terrorism: report
Britain is the 10th most vulnerable country in the world to terrorist attack because of its participation in the Iraq and Afghan wars, the British Financial newspaper quoted a new ranking by a firm of country risk specialists as reporting on Monday.
Britain ranks well ahead of France and Germany, which opposed the US-led war against Iraq and appear in 23rd and 41st place respectively, the ranking compiled by the World Markets Research Center (WMRC) showed.
Some countries such as Liberia, Yemen and Lebanon, are also lower down the ranking.
Britain, the staunchest US ally on Iraq, comes behind the United States, in fourth place, which itself lags behind Colombia,Israel and Pakistan in first, second and third positions respectively.
Britain ranked so highly because "it is the prize target for alQaida in Europe" as a result of British Prime Minister Tony Blair's high-profile support for US President George W. Bush's war on terror, the paper quoted Guy Dunn, director of research at the WMRC as saying.
Britain was "the only country in the top 10 which was there solely because of its potential, since there has not been a major terrorist attack in Britain for some time," Dunn said.
WMRC, whose clients include Microsoft and Shell, assessed the terrorist threat to the world's 186 sovereign states according to five criteria, with "motivation" the most important in determining rankings.
The other factors were the presence and capabilities of terrorist organizations, the scope they had to cause damage and the effectiveness of anti-terrorist forces.
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