Insider Finance - Business - Get ready for more blackouts

Hello, Insiders! This is Joe Ciolli, a deputy executive editor in Insider’s business division. We finally know the Fed’s next move: a 25-basis-point rate hike. It was largely expected, and shows that the central bank is trying to thread the needle between a banking crisis and stubbornly high inflation. The Fed Chair, Jerome Powell, then spooked markets by saying that the Fed will still raise rates as needed.

Here’s what’s on tap today:

Cities across the US are increasingly going dark at the worst moments. 

A record-breaking blizzard in Buffalo, New York, this winter caused power outages and 47 deaths. In 2021, a heat wave led to power outages and the deaths of hundreds in the Pacific Northwest. After years of failing to shore up its power grid, Texas shocked the world when a winter storm shut down power for more than 11 million people for several days in 2021, leading to an estimated 700 deaths. 

Each of these events might have been considered a once-in-a-lifetime event in the past — but mass blackouts are starting to become a more regular feature of modern American life. 

The electrical system has been plagued by decreasing reliability, lagging maintenance, and soaring costs. And extreme weather, driven by the worsening climate crisis, is adding strain to the already-shaky grid. 

All this has left America's energy system woefully unprepared to handle our uncertain future.

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