Oklahoma And The Nation's Electric Infrastructure Is Crumbling

An OSU professor is speaking out, saying the country is facing a growing threat of widespread power blackouts. <br/><br/>News on 6 anchor Terry Hood explains how bad the professor says the problem is

Wednesday, July 26th 2006, 10:18 am

By: News On 6

An OSU professor is speaking out, saying the country is facing a growing threat of widespread power blackouts.

News on 6 anchor Terry Hood explains how bad the professor says the problem is and what he says it's going to take to fix it. Doctor Rama Ramakumar has taught at OSU for almost 40 years. He says during his time there, he's watched America's electricity infrastructure crumble.

Right now, folks in California and New York are dealing with widespread outages. Others are being urged to conserve power to prevent the grid from overloading. Professor Ramakumar says the nation's power grid is a victim of its own reliability. He says it's worked so well for so long, power companies haven't made the necessary repairs to keep it from leaving large parts of the country in the dark.

He says Americans should prepare for more blackouts as the system continues to age or higher electric bills if power companies make major improvements. "They need to spend a tremendous amount of money. We're talking about billions, not a few bucks here and there. Because it's been ignored for a long time, and it's slowly coming home to roost as they call it."

The professor says even though Oklahoma hasn't seen the blackouts like in other parts of the country, he says there is evidence of the aging power infrastructure in Oklahoma