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[quote user="jclass"] Here's the World Ecomomics Forum report, all 529 pages of it. My instinct is to not put much stock in such things, but I suppose important decisions are made based on this level of abstraction. <a href="http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GCR_Report_2011-12.pdf">http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GCR_Report_2011-12.pdf</a> [/quote] I downloaded the report, but I don't think that I will have time to read it in the near future.  I have a number of other projects in the wings. To know the status of the electric generation system in the United States, one would have to know the number of installed generators for starters.  Then he would need to know the rated capacity of each of them. Coupled with this information would be the need to know the status of each one, i.e. on-line, off-line, moth-balled, etc. He would also need to know the status of any new generation being installed and any generation being retired. He would need to know the age of each generator and whether it is capable of running at its rated capacity or whether it could exceed the rated capacity for a short period of time. Equally important, he would need to know the location of each generator and whether it is position optimized the network. This is just for generation. There are thousands of generators throughout the United States. Some of them are operated by investor owned electric utilities; some are operated by co-generators; some of them are are operated by co-ops; some of them are operated by merchant plant owners. Gathering the data just for the United States could be a mind bending exercise. Each electric utility in the United States prepares a FERC 1 form, which provides the FERC with a great deal of statistical data.  However, although it has been years since I prepared the form, as I remember the process the form did not gather a great deal of qualitative data, which is very important in determining the status of the system.  So to my question. How does the methodology of the referenced study deal with these issues across all the countries for which it gathers data.  If it does not have a robust methodology for doing so, then an error is introduced into the gathering, processing, and reporting of the data that could make it suspect. The other question I would have is the so-what question.  What are we as a nation doing different that can be tied to the information contained in the report?
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