Here is an outline of what you can find in this book:
Introduction: Author provides a brief summary of what will be covered in each chapter as the story moves between technical, social, political, and cultural history of blackouts.
Chapter 1 Grid: Overview of growth of electrical power in America, from early independent systems used mainly for lighting streets and small businesses, to huge interconnected systems now vital for many aspects of normal daily life.
Chapter 2 War: In 1935, the New York Times used the term "blackout" in relation to a one-hour darkening of Gibraltar related to military exercises. Prior to and during World War II, millions of civilians turned out lights to make cities less vulnerable to attack from the air. Before and after that war, a second form of intentional blackout was the result of power outages related to strikes by union workers.
Chapter 3 Accident: New York power failures in January 1936 and November 1965 are compared. The 1936 outage affected only about half of New York City, and life returned to normal in about three hours. The 1965 disruption affected Toronto, much of New England and upstate New York, and all of New York City except Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn. The blackout lasted as long as 13 hours in some parts of New York City, but the public generally behaved well, as illustrated by many anecdotes.
Chapter 4 Crisis: A power failure in July 1977 was accompanied by widespread looting in New York City. The author explains how increased demand for electricity, especially for air conditioning, and rising cost of oil contributed to a crisis mentality, but goes on to report that the 1977 disruption was not caused by insufficient generating capacity. Lightning initiated the outage, but a properly maintained system should have recovered in a few seconds. Instead, the loss of two 345-kilovolt power lines led to the automatic shutdown of a nuclear power plant. When more lightning shut down two more power lines and another major generating plant, the remaining system was stressed by a huge overload. A federal report concluded that the system collapsed due to a combination of natural events, equipment malfunctions, questionable system design features, and operating errors.
Chapter 5 Rolling Blackouts: In the 1980s, faced with public resistance to building new power plants and transmission lines, utilities dealt with peak demands that exceeded capacity by cutting off groups of customers in rotation for short periods of time. Deregulation of generation of electricity encouraged construction of new plants to increase supply, but inadequate attention to the distribution network and lack of regulation of energy traders such as Enron led to disastrous results in California in 2001. In August 2003, a blackout affecting an area from Ohio and Michigan through Toronto to New York City cost consumers an estimated $7 billion.
Chapter 6 Terror: Discusses fears of blackouts due to possible attacks by terrorists.
Chapter 7 Greenout? Discusses use of voluntary demonstrations to help build a future of alternative power generation and greater energy efficiency.
Notes: 35 pages of endnotes, grouped by chapter.
Bibliography: 15 pages
Index: 8 pages.
