President Obama's push to modernize the electricity grid will
require agencies to get a lot smarter about how they track
energy use. You can't fault President Obama for a lack of
ambition. Besides planning to overhaul the health care and
public education systems, rebuild aging infrastructure, and wean
the country from its addiction to fossil fuels, the new
administration intends to retool the engine that powers the
entire economy-the electricity grid. If the nation were an
ailing patient in a hospital intensive care unit, that would be
the equivalent of conducting a bone marrow transplant, a couple
of hip replacements and a blood transfusion. Electricity is the
lifeblood of modern life. The infrastructure that delivers it to
virtually every citizen is so massively complex and inextricably
linked to human endeavor that a recent Energy Department report
describes it as an ecosystem of more than 9,200 electric
generating units strung together by more than 300,000 miles of
transmission lines. The National Academy