Keeping the lights on

Keeping the lights on - Examiner.com

WASHINGTON (Map, News) - The prospect of having to endure rolling brownouts in addition to the Washington region’s already legendary traffic jams would make even Pollyanna reach for the Prozac. But that could happen in just three years unless state politicians and regulators on both sides of the Potomac approve more transmission lines to handle the Washington region’s ever-increasing thirst for electricity.

Both power-line and traffic gridlock have the same root cause: an inexplicable unwillingness to add the capacity needed to accommodate demand by current residents, plus the tens of thousands of newcomers who are expected to move to the Washington area in the next two decades with their iPhones, computers and hybrid cars.