Aging Infrastructure-Transmission Grid Edition

Scientific American, via Mark Thoma:

Experts say the cascading blackout that put millions of Westerners in the dark last week was no surprise: Major power outages have more than doubled in the last decade.

"This is just evidence that we need a smarter, better, more secure system," said Massoud Amin, director of the Technological Leadership Institute at the University of Minnesota, who has analyzed federal data on the reliability of the nation's electric grid.
Blackouts disrupt power to at least a third of U.S. homes each year, and studies show the number of outages is rising.

The grid's shortcomings have been well-documented, but efforts to modernize it haven't kept up with demand. Many electrical transmission lines are outdated, and parts of the grid date back to the time of Thomas Edison​.

Name any infrastructure system, and we need to spend a lot of money improving or replacing it.  This is just one more example.  The last 30 years will go down in history for a lot of failures, but failing to reinvest in our infrastructure system will be one of the biggest.