I find a comparison between the blackout in the United States, and the one in Bolivia (perhaps 3-4 weeks ago) quite troubling.

There are differences, of course. The blackout in Bolivia was resolved in 2-3 hours.

Now, to the similarities. First and foremost is the fact that several major cities, in a large area, were affected in both cases. Second, nobody seems to know the exact cause. Finally there is the fact that the blackouts occured within a relatively short time between them.

Now, all this doesn't add up to a tremendous coincidence, but it does get me thinking.

The first thing that may come to mind, of course, is terrorism.

This has already been ruled out, and it really doesn't require terrorism to explain the facts.

The problem simply seems to be that there is not enough redundancy, and other safety measures, in the system. Probably both Bolivia and the U.S./Canada work on similar economic models, that discourage the large investments that would be required to obtain this redundancy and safety.

Also, and returning to the subject of terrorism, if there is a single point that can make the entire system fail, this can easily be exploited. I am talking about the future now, not about what happened.

Also, I suspect that a similar lack of investments exists in many other countries. Therefore, I wouldn't be too surprised if similar large-scale blackouts appear in the news from other countries, in the near future.