Blackout

IN ECONOMICS there's a heads for every tails, a pull for every push, and the happy reciprocal of the Blackout of 2003 will be the purchase of billions of dollars' worth of electrical transmission hardware. Capital projects with 10-figure price tags are what the U.S. economy needs. We have too many factories, too much telephone cable and plenty of office buildings. Business investment has all but dried up as a result, with lugubrious economic effects. What we don't have enough of are wires, switches, circuit breakers, poles and towers for moving electrical power across the land, a situation underscored by the recent northern darkness.

It doesn't take a football fan to feel good about the Baltimore Ravens winning the Super Bowl . As thousands gather Tuesday morning for a victory parade through the streets of Charm City, let us take stock of just what an extraordinary moment this is. A team that oddsmakers saw as a prohibitive fourth-seed underdog in the National Football League playoffs had to overcome away games against star-studded franchises like New England and Denver and...

Trouble in a feeder line was blamed for a power blackout last night that affected nearly 2,000 Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. customers in southern Baltimore neighborhoods, a spokesman for the utility said. The problem occurred shortly after 9 p.m. when an underground feeder line at William Street, near Key Highway, failed for an unknown reason, said BGE spokesman Arthur Liebno. An employee of Hartlove's, a tavern in the 600 block of E. Fort Ave., said it was still without electricity at 10:30 p.m. But across the street, a barmaid at Captain Larry's said it was not affected.

Gov. Martin O'Malley's proposal to force Maryland utilities to harden their systems against the kind of damage we saw in the summer's derecho storm raised immediate concerns among consumer advocates. The reason: It could add a dollar or two a month to residential customers' bills to compensate utilities for trimming trees, burying power lines and other activities that advocates say companies like Baltimore Gas & Electric and Pepco ought to be doing anyway. The criticism is particularly pointed in the case of Pepco, which was fined $1 million last year by the Public Service Commission for failing to invest sufficiently in that kind of grid maintenance.

A 40-minute blackout at Towson Town Center plunged stores into darkness and forced the mall to close for a short time yesterday afternoon. Shoppers reported that most people did not panic and left the mall in an orderly manner. The power went out just before 4 p.m., when the mall was not particularly crowded. The last of the stores reopened before 5 p.m. "It was light one minute and then everything went deadly quiet and dark because the lights went out," said Melissa Malanowski, a Towson University student who was filling out paperwork for her new part-time job at Hecht's.

SATURDAY'S WEDDING of Ms. Susan Koenig and Mr. Kenneth Sturek will be remembered for its high points -- vows at the majestic Basilica of the Assumption, elegant and flawless reception at the Country Club of Maryland, five bridesmaids and five ushers, bride in cathedral-length veil and train -- and for its low points -- a bruise, a break-in, a blackout, a blunder.The bruise: Susan fell on the ice outside her apartment Thursday morning. "Black and blue all up and down her thigh, and she's supposed to wear a bikini on her honeymoon in Hawaii," says the bride's mother, Jean Koenig, of Baldwin in Baltimore County.

As I write this, my laptop computer's battery meter shows just over an hour of juice left, so I'll have to get most of this column finished before it runs out. That's because there's no more electricity where this charge came from, at least for now. Yes, there's no better time to write about the perils facing PCs and other delicate gadgets in this damp early-summer of discontent than in the middle of a blackout. Actually, when the power died a half-hour ago, some of the precautions we'd taken worked just fine.

THE BASEBALL season is young, but for those who want to see the Washington Nationals on television, the consternation must be getting old. This week, the issue was blackouts of TBS telecasts while the Nats played the Atlanta Braves. By Major League Baseball's rules, the superstation isn't allowed to televise into the home team's market regardless of whether that team in on local TV. In Baltimore, this hasn't been an issue, because 150 or so Orioles games get on the air each season via stations available throughout the region.

WASHINGTON - The immediate causes of the blackout Aug. 14 were made clear in a report issued last week. But various experts say the findings were too narrow, ignoring the federal government's role in the recent reshaping of the power industry. Two organizations that operate in the part of Ohio where the problems originated - First Energy, a utility, and the Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator, a regional agency that was supposed to be overseeing FirstEnergy - were created as part of the deregulation process.

With all her tabloid drama in the past few years (the wobbly marriage and messy divorce, the rehab, the custody battle, the pathetic MTV "comeback" performance), it's easy to forget that Britney Spears once made infectious and sometimes excellent pop music. The sad details of her chaotic personal life have all but obliterated her success as a performer. But she remains one of the biggest-selling female artists of all time; she's sold more than 83 million albums since her 1999 debut, ... Baby One More Time.

If Baltimore Gas and Electric can legally pass on the cost of the recent outage - along with the fines to them associated with their slow response to the people who suffered through the weeklong blackout - how is a fine effective in preventing future delayed reactions from BGE? Perhaps fines deducted from their executives' obscene bonuses would be a better idea. Deborah Greenstein

An article in the Jan. 6, 1912 edition of The Argus reported on the ominous start for the new year. The greater part of Catonsville was in total darkness Sunday night on account of the grounding of the electric current supplying the lights, caused by the heavy foggy atmosphere. The current set fire to a number of the electric light poles and to avoid further damage and any possible danger to the traveling public, the current was turned off at Avalon on the Baltimore County Water and Electric Company, from whence the current is supplied.

July 22 was the first time in four years that BGE had an emergency activation of our PeakRewards program. This emergency electric load reduction, which was repeated across the region by other utilities to varying degrees, was taken at the direction of the PJM Interconnection, the regional transmission operator (power grid) serving Maryland and several other states. In the past, BGE has had some non-emergency events with lower impact. However, emergency activations of the program have been infrequent and are expected to remain infrequent in the future.

Yet again, the aftermath of a storm has left large segments of the public disgusted with a slow restoration of power. We saw this following Hurricane Isabel a few years ago and after the February blizzards and severe thunderstorms last year. The time it has taken to restore power has led to calls for fines and penalties on the utilities that provide the wires, poles, transformers and substations that bring us electricity. Under these circumstances, you might think the silliest thing we could do would be to promise these utilities the same profits regardless of how much electricity they deliver.

NFL Chargers avoid having game against Ravens blacked out The San Diego Chargers have sold enough tickets to lift the local television blackout of their home opener Sunday against the Ravens. The Chargers were in danger of their first regular-season blackout since 2004. Both of their exhibition openers were blacked out, and the team has warned fans that there could be regular-season blackouts. The team said 4,000 tickets remain for their game against the Miami Dolphins a week from Sunday.

The most serious threat to your computer and other electronics today might not be a virus or spyware attack. It's a summer thunderstorm - or more precisely, the sudden blackouts and power surges that lightning can cause. If you haven't done anything to protect your equipment against this threat, it's time. And if you haven't checked the protective devices you bought a couple of years ago, it's time for that, too.

Sooner or later in the NFL, as in any sport, the past yields to the present. The bulky leather headgear of the 1930s became today's streamlined polyurethane helmets. The single-wing formation of the World War II era gave way eventually to the West Coast offense.What apparently doesn't change in the NFL is its antiquated telecast policy. Over the growing protests of its fans and some of its television partners, the league continues to hold on to a more than 30-year-old plan that essentially restricts the number of games you can see each weekend.

The NFL extended its television blackout rule by 24 hours yesterday, giving the Ravens until 4 p.m. today to sell the final 2,525 tickets to Sunday's season opener against Jacksonville.If the remaining tickets are not sold by the deadline, the game will not be televised locally. The Ravens, who sold out all eight home games last year, moved about 650 tickets yesterday."We got the extension and I'm optimistic the game is going to be sold out," said Ravens owner Art Modell. "We figure by 4 o'clock everything will go clean."

Parts of Maryland are still at risk for isolated blackouts as early as 2011 unless new transmission lines are built to get energy to where it's needed most, regional grid operator PJM Interconnection told state utility regulators yesterday. The latest assessment comes despite significant progress by power generators and utilities toward addressing the region's growing energy needs through a combination of power plant upgrades and conservation measures aimed at cutting demand. Though the risk has diminished some since a similar assessment last fall, whether the lights stay on after 2011 may hinge on a critical multistate power line proposed by Allegheny Energy.

With all her tabloid drama in the past few years (the wobbly marriage and messy divorce, the rehab, the custody battle, the pathetic MTV "comeback" performance), it's easy to forget that Britney Spears once made infectious and sometimes excellent pop music. The sad details of her chaotic personal life have all but obliterated her success as a performer. But she remains one of the biggest-selling female artists of all time; she's sold more than 83 million albums since her 1999 debut, ... Baby One More Time.