Top 9 Things You Didn't Know About America's Power Grid

This article is part of the Energy.gov series highlighting the “Top Things You Didn’t Know About…” Be sure to check back for more entries soon.

9. Ever wonder how electricity gets to your home?

It’s delivered through the grid--a complex network of power plants and transformers connected by more than 450,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines.

The basic process: Electric power is generated at power plants and then moved by transmission lines to substations.

A local distribution system of smaller, lower-voltage transmission lines moves power from substations to you, the customer. Watch an animated video on how the grid works.



8. Thomas Edison launched the first commercial power grid, The Pearl Street Station, in lower Manhattan in 1882.

The offices of The New York Times, one of Edison’s earliest electricity customers, reported lighting provided by Pearl Street was “soft, mellow, grateful to the eye.”

Pearl Street Station

7. America’s electric grid is actually comprised of three smaller grids, called interconnections, that move electricity around the country.

The Eastern Interconnection operates in states east of the Rocky Mountains, The Western Interconnection covers the Pacific Ocean to the Rocky Mountain states, and the smallest--the Texas Interconnected system--covers most of Texas, as displayed in the map below:




6. The electric grid is an engineering marvel but its aging infrastructure requires extensive upgrades to effectively meet the nation’s energy demands.

Through the Recovery Act, the Department invested about $4.5 billion in grid modernization to enhance the reliability of the nation’s grid.

Since 2010, these investments have been used to deploy a wide range of advanced devices, including more than 10,000 automated capacitors, over 7,000 automated feeder switches and approximately 15.5 million smart meters.

5. What is the distinction between grid reliability and resiliency? A more reliable grid is one with fewer and shorter power interruptions.

A more resilient grid is one better prepared to recover from adverse events like severe weather.

4. Severe weather is the number one cause of power outages in the United States, costing the economy between $18 and $33 billion every year in lost output and wages, spoiled inventory, delayed production and damage to grid infrastructure.

The number of outages caused by severe weather is expected to rise as climate change increases the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events.

3. One of the key solutions for a more resilient and reliable grid is synchrophaser technology.
These mailbox-size devices monitor the health of the grid at frequencies not previously possible, reporting data 30 times per second.

This enhanced visibility into grid conditions helps grid operators identify and respond to deteriorating or abnormal conditions more quickly, reduce power outages and help with the integration of more renewable sources of energy into the grid.

To date, nearly 900 of these devices have deployed as a result of Recovery Act investments.

2. Microgrids, which are localized grids that are normally connected to the more traditional electric grid but can disconnect to operate autonomously, are another way in which the reliability and resiliency of the grid can be improved.

Microgrids use advanced smart grid technologies and the integration of distributed energy resources such as backup generators, solar panels and storage.

Because they can operate independently of the grid during outages, microgrids are typically used to provide reliable power during extreme weather events.

As part of the Obama Administration’s commitment to rebuild communities affected by Superstorm Sandy, the Department is partnering with the State of New Jersey and other organizations to examine the use of microgrids to help keep the power on during future extreme weather events.

1. Since 2010, the Energy Department has invested more than $100 million to advance a resilient grid infrastructure that can survive a cyber incident while sustaining critical functions.

The Department’s cybersecurity work involves ongoing collaboration with a number of public and private partners including the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the intelligence community, private industry and energy-sector stakeholders.

We would like to think of ourselves as a Christian country. But, why? If you were brought up in Jewish neighborhoods like I was you were always aware of that religion. As kids we went to Temple on some of the more interesting holy days. I learned to play Canasta but not Mahjong. My friends always showed up at Christmas and marveled at the customs, especially the decorated Christmas tree which always had a candy cane for each of my friends. Roberta and I used to eat half the loaf of Challah bread before we reached her house on Fridays. Our friend Rose's parents were from India and Rose kept her religion to herself but played a mean game of Canasta. I wondered why people actually fought over religion. It seemed pretty settled to me. There is so much to learn from each other. There is no need to feel threatened. Learn from the children.

Where is Separation of Church and State found in the US Constitution and how does the Supreme Court interpret this clause?

Mandate for the separation of church and state is in the US Constitution.

It is implied in the Constitution's First Amendment "Establishment Clause," where "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..." has been widely interpreted to mean that the government should not involve itself in religion in any way, including providing funds to support religious teaching in public schools, or allowing organized prayer in activities or facilities that receive government funds.

The First Amendment's freedom of religion includes the freedom to refrain from practicing a religion or having someone else's religious rituals inflicted upon a person in a public (non-religious) setting.

Cornell University Annotations on the First Amendment contrasts Justice Joseph Story's 19th-century interpretation of the Establishment Clause, which discusses the attitude toward Christianity, with Justice David Souter's 20th-century interpretation, which takes into account the variety of religious practices (or lack thereof) in the United States today.

Thomas Jefferson firmly believed the Constitution should erect a "wall of separation" between church and state, as he explained in his 1802 letter to the Danbury (Connecticut) Baptists: "Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their "legislature" should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between church and State.

Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties."

In the case Reynolds v. United States, 98 US 145 (1878), Chief Justice Waite delivered the opinion of the Court, quoting Jefferson's in the context of a Mormon polygamy trial, and concluding: "Coming as this does from an acknowledged leader of the advocates of the measure, it may be accepted almost as an authoritative declaration of the scope and effect of the amendment thus secured.

Congress was deprived of all legislative power over mere opinion, but was left free to reach actions which were in violation of social duties or subversive of good order.

"Justice Story "Probably, at the time of the adoption of the constitution and of the amendment to it, now under consideration, the general, if not the universal, sentiment in America was, that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the state, so far as was not incompatible with the private rights of conscience, and the freedom of religious worship.

An attempt to level all religions, and to make it a matter of state policy to hold all in utter indifference, would have created universal disapprobation, if not universal indignation."

[Cornell Commentary: "The object, then, of the religion clauses in this view was not to prevent general governmental encouragement of religion, of Christianity, but to prevent religious persecution and to prevent a national establishment."]

Justice Souter "[Justice Story's] interpretation has long since been abandoned by the Court, beginning, at least, with Everson v. Board of Education, in which the Court, without dissent on this point, declared that the Establishment Clause forbids not only practices that "aid one religion" or "prefer one religion over another," but as well those that "aid all religions.""

[Cornell commentary: "Recently, in reliance on published scholarly research and original sources, Court dissenters have recurred to the argument that what the religion clauses, principally the Establishment Clause, prevent is "preferential" governmental promotion of some religions, allowing general governmental promotion of all religion in general.

The Court has not responded, though Justice Souter in a major concurring opinion did undertake to rebut the argument and to restate the Everson position."]

See Related Links to access the full article.
Amendment I "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

From Dot Calm's Shadow's "It would be funny if it weren't true" department comes this item:
Pat Robertson tells an 80-year-old woman to get off her butt and get a job
(yes, so she can both meet expenses and tithe)....

Co-host Terry reading the letter: My husband and I are in our 80s and have been tithing for many years. We both love the Lord and give willingly and our tithe is over 10 percent. I praise Him and thank Him for our blessings. I declare that this is our time of prosperity, but we never have an extra penny after our bills are paid.

Our old car just broke down and we had to borrow money to fix it. We both need dental work, but we can’t afford it. I constantly have to use our credit card to pay for medical needs. I speak the verse about "give and it will be given to you." We have no unforgiveness in our lives. What could we be doing wrong? - Audrey

Pat Robertson: Ask God to show you some ways of making money. There are many ways of making money, even at 80 years old. You know, you can get on the telephone, people are hiring. There are all kinds of things you can do. For example, you may have a bunch of junk lying around in your garage that you can sell on eBay, and get some money that way.

There are many, many ways of making money. And you’re looking at the downside of all the bills you’ve got instead of saying, ‘God, I’ve been faithful to you. Now, I claim my blessing, and I ask you to open the windows of heaven and pour me out a blessing. Show me what you’re going to do, show me how I can move into blessing.’ So, just ask him. He'll give you some concepts. Your mind will open up.

The Gospel of Supply Side Jesus

Reprinted from Lies: And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them-A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right by Al Franken by permission of Dutton, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Copyright c Al Franken, Inc., 2003. "Supply Side Jesus" illustrations c Don Simpson. All rights reserved. This excerpt, or any parts thereof, may not be reproduced without permission.









Read more at http://www.beliefnet.com/News/2003/09/The-Gospel-Of-Supply-Side-Jesus.aspx#Pv9701CayJZJtYII.99

The Religious Right’s ‘Nice Guy’ Threw His Wife Under the Bus

Bob McDonnell went from GOP family-values godsend to blaming everything on his ‘nut bag’ wife.

Yet the Rolex-taking ‘Mr. Honest’ never acknowledged his own bad behavior.

When Bob McDonnell burst onto the national scene in 2009, he was everything the Republican Party needed—a good-looking family man who stopped the Obama juggernaut in its tracks in the swing state of Virginia just 12 months after the party’s McCain humiliation of 2008.

A family-values social conservative (he got his JD from Regent University), McDonnell cleverly wooed Commonwealth voters with his corn-dog “Bob’s for Jobs” campaign slogan and a heavy dose of what appeared to be the TV-perfect brood: five gorgeous kids, including a daughter who served in the military in Iraq, and a devoted, smiling wife who had once been a Washington Redskins cheerleader.

McDonnell’s family was emblazoned on his campaign bus and commercials.

At the inaugural ball after he won the governor’s race, the McDonnells slow-danced to “Looks Like We Made It.”

McDonnell had even written his master’s thesis on the breakdown of the American family and ways the Republican Party could build it back up.

“As the family goes, so goes the nation,” he wrote.

Underlying the entire McDonnell package in 2009 was a known truth about the governor among political operatives who knew him and believed in him—that unlike the divas and the bullies and the egomaniacs who litter both political parties today, Bob McDonnell was just a good guy.

Staff called him “Mr. Honest.” Republicans in Washington called him “the Boy Scout.”

It was that tangible persona, coupled with McDonnell’s talent for winning elections, that instantly drew national Republicans to the new Virginia governor and made him easily believable as a potential vice-presidential or presidential contender.

Mitt Romney made no secret of his interest in having McDonnell on his ticket in 2012 and, with the Peanuts Gang hodge-podge that is the current presidential pack for the GOP, there is no doubt that an untarnished Bob McDonnell would be a leading 2016 hopeful for Republicans today.

But fast-forward four short years and the image of “good-guy Bob McDonnell” is dead, not because Gov. and Mrs. McDonnell have been handed his-and-hers felony convictions for public corruption, as they were Thursday, but because of the grotesque decision that Bob McDonnell made about how he would prove his innocence before a jury of his peers.

There is no “good guy Bob McDonnell” in this scenario. There never was any “Mr. Honest.” The Boy Scout that  people thought they knew does not exist.

Instead of shielding his family from the accusations against him and making his case on his own, Gov. McDonnell’s defense team pinned the couple’s hopes for freedom on persuading the jury that Mrs. McDonnell was a lovelorn, possibly mentally ill, “angry” “manipulative” “unpredictable” “deceptive” “nut bag,” all descriptions of the former first lady that came from defense witnesses, including several of Bob McDonnell’s relatives.

How could the governor and his wife have been conspiring to do anything, the reasoning went, if their marriage was so mangled that they couldn’t even have a conversation?

But the defense never bothered to explain how Mrs. McDonnell’s behavior, which may have been every bit as atrocious as described, would have made good-guy Bob McDonnell think that it was normal, let alone legal, for anyone to be buying him a Rolex for any reason, as vitamin salesman and bad-actor Jonnie Williams did.

And why would Maureen McDonnell’s state of mind make a semi-stranger picking up the tab for a portion of their daughter’s wedding seem acceptable under any circumstance?

And was it Mrs. M’s “angry” tone toward the mansion staff that made Bob McDonnell get behind the wheel of Williams’ $160,000 Ferrari and smile for the camera?

The defense, which was endorsed by Bob McDonnell, sought to blame all of the bad decisions of the governor on the chaotic mind-set of his wife—when it was the governor, not Mrs. McDonnell, who was the elected official and it was he who had the responsibility to make sure that his family, even his “nut bag” other half, lived up to the office he was serving in.

McDonnell’s defense team says it will appeal the verdict, but nothing the ex-governor does in the future will erase the way his wife has been treated at the hands of his lawyers in the last several weeks.

For a man to forgo a plea deal that would have spared his wife any legal action, as Bob McDonnell chose to do, could be excused if he truly believed he did nothing wrong and they would both be exonerated in the end.

But for a man to humiliate his wife, even a wife he doesn’t seem to like very much anymore, as Bob McDonnell has done to Maureen McDonnell, proves only one thing.

There is no “good guy Bob McDonnell” in this scenario.

There never was any “Mr. Honest.”

The Boy Scout that a people thought they knew does not exist.

There is only a Rolex-wearing, Ferrari-driving, throw-the-wife-under-the-bus 21st-century politician.

And from all appearances, he’s going to jail.

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A typical "modern-day" Republican. It is important to distinguish these greedy bastards. It clearly shows that these wealthy Republicans feel entitled to whatever gifts and pleasures come their way. They are loathe to attention. Regarde the Koch brothers! How long have they been influencing the future of this country and how it should favor the wealthy? Screw trickle down! The gloves are off.

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I  HATE  GOOOOOGLE !

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