The reliability of our electricity supply is critical to the normal operation of our economy and our society, particularly in the areas of transportation, telecommunications and our financial systems. We read about e-Bay going down for four or five hours and losing millions of dollars. And if we are to bridge the digital divide for our citizens, reliable, high quality electric power must become a national priority, For factories turning out the latest generation of semi-conductors, even minor fluctuations in the power supply are unacceptable. Fuel cells could help with delivery, transmission lines could be upgraded with power electronics to make them operate more efficiently. But as it now stands, these technological innovations are just too expensive.
More research is needed to help bring the costs down, and to make broad deployment cost effective.
A couple of years ago, Kurt Yeager and the executive team at EPRI embarked on a long-term strategy to help meet the challenges I'm outlining here today. The Roadmap is an on-going initiative involving about 150 organizations, and it represents the most strategic vision of the future of electric power I've ever seen. But despite the challenges, I remain optimistic. Following the Roadmap guidelines, we can deliver on electricity's promise for the future, to Electrify the World. Rural electrification transformed the Tennessee Valley, where I live, in the 20th Century, and I know electric power can transform the developing world in the 21st.