It's the endless network of power plants, wires, towers, meters, and software that you've come to rely on, every time you flick a light switch.

And it's closer to failing than you think. . .

Consider this nugget from the American Society of Civil Engineer's (ASCE) most recent infrastructure report card:

The transmission and distribution system has become congested because growth in electricity demand and investment in new generation facilities have not been matched by investment in new transmission facilities. This congestion virtually prohibits outages required for proper maintenance and can lead to system wide failures in the event of unplanned outages.

System-Wide Failures

Listen, 70 years ago. . . before microwaves, iPods, cell phones, laptops, plasmas, and LCDs. . . only 10% of our energy use went toward producing electricity.

By 1970, that number had grown to 25%.

And today — as I write this on my two-screened computer, with a cell phone in my pocket and a GPS in my bag — the production of electricity requires 40% of America's total energy use.

But capacity is not the problem. . .

As you read in the quote above, distribution is our real problem. We've invested billions in generation, but have lacked with respect to transmission and distribution.

How bad is the discrepancy? Back to the ASCE:

Electricity demand has increased by about 25% since 1990 while construction of transmission facilities decreased by about 30 percent.

If we continue on our current path. . . there will come a day when you flick the switch and the light does not turn on. But it won't be a case of a burned-out bulb — it'll be a system-wide failure.

The Trillion Dollar Horse

As you know, the past 40 years have been all about energy production. We've built nukes; we've built coal plants. We've built giant dams.

More recently, we've deployed thousands of megawatts of solar, wind, and geothermal in an effort to go green.

And all that stuff is great.

But it seems now that we may have been putting the energy horse in front of the distribution cart.

Think of it like this:

In the Midwest, there are dozens of wind farms turning out several gigawatts of electricity. But in New York City. . . there are no wind farms.

Which location uses more energy and has a much denser population?

If you can understand that. . . you can understand the problems facing our current grid. The large generation sources — wind farms, nuclear plants, coal plants — are mostly located far from where most of the energy is needed.

And it gets worse. . .