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Over and over this week, as I heard reporters chirp, "The heat wave is putting pressure on the nation's power grid," I thought to myself, "I bet they don't know much about the nation's power grid." Neither, frankly, did I. So here is some background.

The stress that we see on the nation's power is only a symptom of a system that is stressed in the best of times. In 2002, the Consortium for Electric Reliability Technology Solutions took a deep and long-term look at the nation's power supply and demand.

That report, published by the Department of Energy, said we need to build more capacity [PDF] and find ways to conserve. Neither has happened to any great degree. The American Society for Civil Engineers says total U.S. transmission capacity decreased by approximately 19 percent per year between 1992 and 2002. In other words, things are getting worse, not better. The Department of Energy noted that it is becoming increasingly difficult to "site" high-power transmission lines in today's urban environments. All of this leads up to a chilling revelation in that 2002 DoE report -- something that most of us have no idea is going on in the background when we turn on our air conditioning. The report says:

Today, power failures, close calls, and near misses are much more common than in the past.

A July 2003 DoE study says [PDF]:

America's electric system, "the supreme engineering achievement of the 20th century," is aging, inefficient, and congested, and incapable of meeting the future energy needs of the Information Economy without operational changes and substantial capital investment over the next several decades.

The study continues [PDF]:

America operates about 157,000 miles of high-voltage electric transmission lines. While
electricity demand increased by about 25 percent since 1990, construction of transmission facilities decreased about 30 percent. In fact, annual investment in new transmission facilities has declined over the last 25 years. The result is grid congestion, which can mean higher electricity costs because customers cannot get access to lower-cost electricity supplies, and because of higher line losses.

Transmission and distribution losses are related to how heavily the system is loaded. U.S.-wide transmission and distribution losses were about 5 percent in 1970, and grew to 9.5 percent in 2001, due to heavier utilization and more frequent congestion. Congested transmission paths, or "bottlenecks," now affect many parts of the grid across the country. In addition, it is estimated that power outages and power quality disturbances cost the economy from $25 to $180 billion annually. These costs could soar if outages or disturbances become more frequent or longer in duration. There are also operational problems in maintaining voltage levels.

Journalists should know that there is no "national power grid" in the United States, per se. The continental United States is divided into three main interconnected power grids, which may transfer power to each other if they have enough to spare:

• The Eastern Interconnected System, or the Eastern Interconnect
• The Western Interconnected System, or the Western Interconnect
• The Texas Interconnected System, or the Texas Interconnect

Look at this graphic from the Department of Energy to see which interconnection you live in:

Now, let's take a look at how the grid shows up in your town. From power plant to your house, HowStuffWorks.com shows you how the electrical system is set up:

Ever wonder why high-voltage transmission towers always have three wires on the bottom and some lone wires on the top? There is a reason. Power plants produce three phases of power so each line on the bottom carries a phase, plus the top wires are there to act as lightning rods.

In your neighborhoods, you may see power substations. Here is what they do. Think of them as step-down units from the high-voltage lines. They are like train stations, they slow things down and distribute the power to other directions.

When you look at a power pole along a street, notice the three phase wires once again, there is usually a fourth wire for grounding, then there may be "guy wires," which carry no current, to improve strength. Then, sometimes, you will find cables for telephones or cable TV. 

Howstuffworks explains what the wires on the pole next to your house do. The transformer drum, once again, steps down the power.

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What Uses the Most Electricity in Your Home?

In order to cut your electric bill during the hot weather, you have to know where the juice is flowing. Howstuffworks.com calculates the biggest drains:

Howstuffworks continues:

Water heating uses a good bit of power as well. When you take a shower or run a load of clothes in the washer, the electric water heater might run for an hour reheating the water in the tank. That's 40 cents. A typical household can burn several dollars a day heating water. Because we don't normally think of it this way, it is funny to consider that every shower you take costs 40 cents! When you add in the cost of washing and drying the towels (every load of clothes that you run might cost $1 to $2 for washing and drying), plus the soap and shampoo, it can cost nearly a buck to take a shower!

Refrigeration is another big power drain because the refrigerator can easily run for 10 hours a day. That's about $1 per day to keep the milk cold. If you leave the computer or TV on all day, it can add up to $1 per day as well.

Then we get to light bulbs. At 0.6 cents per hour, it doesn't seem like much. However, many fixtures contain two or more bulbs, and it is easy to leave several fixtures on. If 10 bulbs are burning, that's 6 cents an hour. If they burn for six hours a day, that's 36 cents per day for lighting. Multiply that by 30 days in a month, and it's $10 per month for photons.

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Grid-Friendly Appliances

One interesting innovation is the notion of a "grid-friendly" appliance. Scientists are working on electronic controllers that can be built into appliances that could, for a few seconds at a time, shut off some parts of the appliance to relieve pressure on electric grids. As a consumer, you wouldn't even notice the change, but it could have a huge impact on electrical use at peak times. Last summer, Wired magazine wrote about the technology.

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Birth Control Price Hike

This is a story that you should look at locally. I have not seen this story show up anywhere else, but it seems it could be a national story. The Charleston (W.V.) Gazette notes:

Clinics in West Virginia and across the country providing free birth control to low-income men and women face a possible drought of contraceptive pills and patches after the top supplier drastically raised prices [last] month.

Prices for birth control products from Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical Inc. to public health services leapt from a few pennies to more than $20 in some cases, meaning programs such as West Virginia Family Planning cannot buy the company's products anymore.

The story adds:

A 30-day supply of one type of pill that once cost a penny now costs $21.01, [West Virginia family planning program director Denise] Smith said. The Ortho Evra patch ran at $12.15, but now comes in at $22.46. About 4,800 low-income West Virginians got the patch last year, Smith said.

This is a story with national implications. The story says:

The national picture looks just as bleak from the perspective of perpetually under-funded public health-care agencies, said Marilyn Keefe, vice president for public policy at National Family Planning Reproductive Health Association, a family planning center advocacy group in Washington, D.C.

"This price increase comes at a terrible time in the life of the public health care system," she said. "It's a hope that the company will rethink its decision and reverse those price increases. ..."

The company followed federal Medicaid pricing formulas that change every financial quarter, the last being July 1, [Ortho-McNeil spokeswoman Julie] Keenan said. ...

The Ortho-McNeil price hike does not affect condoms or birth control shots, but hormone-based pills and the patch prove more effective, said Pam Maddox, family nurse practitioner at Women's Health Center.

About 75 percent of Women's Health Center's patients used Ortho-McNeil products, Maddox said. Of the eight birth control pills the clinic offered, five were made by Ortho-McNeil.

Switching birth control pills is not like changing your favorite soda or taking a different route to work. Each pill releases different levels and types of hormones with different effects, Maddox said.

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Congress Going After Deceptive Sex Sites

C/Net explains how it could soon be that sex websites sites are legal but sex sites that try to trick users into thinking they are clicking on an innocent site will be illegal.

Web pages that use innocent words like "Barbie" or "Furby" but actually feature sexual content will be subject to felony charges, thanks to a bill the U.S. Senate approved Thursday.

Anyone who includes misleading words or images intended to confuse a minor into viewing a possibly harmful Web site could be imprisoned for up to 20 years and fined, the legislation says.

You can see the full text of the bill here. [PDF]

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Black Civil War Heroes (Multimedia)

The Hampton Roads, Va., Daily Press has made an unusually deep commitment to telling the story of black Civil War soldiers who were awarded the Medal of Honor. The paper even found living descendants of those heroes. 

The project includes daily videos which are of unusually high quality. And just think, the paper did this without waiting for Black History Month. They did it because it is a darn good story. See the whole story collection here. 

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Heat Makes Baby Bats Fall From the Sky

Hey, I have the video from The Weather Channel. The situation is this: It is so hot in the roosts that the adult bats push the babies out.

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Editor's Note: Al's Morning Meeting is a compendium of ideas, edited story excerpts and other materials from a variety of Web sites, as well as original concepts and analysis. When the information comes directly from another source, it will be attributed and a link will be provided whenever possible. The column is fact-checked, but depends upon the accuracy and integrity of the original sources cited. Errors and inaccuracies found will be corrected.

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