Hurricane Sandy left over eight million people along the East
Coast without power. More than a week later, hundreds of
thousands are still in the dark. With a warming planet, it's
likely there will be more Sandy-strength storms in the years to
come. At a press conference last week, New York Gov. Andrew
Cuomo said the city needs to "not only rebuild, but rebuild
stronger and smarter." So how should the nation prepare? Weather
isn't the only reason to update the grid. Power outages cost the
nation between $80 billion and $180 billion each year, according
to research by Massoud Amin, a senior member of Institute for
Electrical and Electronics Engineers. And they're getting worse.
The number of major outages has doubled in the last 10 years.
"We're over harvesting the farm," said Amin. "We're trying to
extract more and more from the same infrastructure." Amin's
solution is to build a more robust grid by adding more power
plants, transmission lines, sensors and computing power --
basically expanding what has becom