(Press-News.org) CORVALLIS, Ore. – Power outages have never been more costly. Electricity is critical to communication, transportation, commerce and national security systems, and wide-spread or prolonged outages have the potential to threaten public safety and cause millions, even billions, of dollars in damages.
"It doesn't seem that dire until a storm hits, or somebody makes a mistake, and then you are risking a blackout," said Inara Scott, an assistant professor in the College of Business at Oregon State University.
"You have to consider the magnitude of the potential harm to the public. Without power, you can't pump gas. Cell phones may not work. Water systems are threatened. These are big problems."
That's why it may be time to re-examine the role of public utility commissions and the effect of the National Labor Relations Act in labor disputes regarding electric utilities, Scott suggests in a new study.
Public utility commissions have more authority than some existing court decisions suggest, but they tend to take a conservative approach and there is a strong presumption that they can't get involved, Scott said. Modifying the NLRA to more clearly define the states' powers might be needed to change that mindset, she said. The changes would affect both sides – labor and management – equally, she said.
"The current law does not reflect the times," Scott said. "The courts need to look at these cases differently, because the role of electricity in our lives has changed."
Many public utility commissions have concluded, based largely on court decisions under the NLRA, that they're prohibited from intervening in labor disputes even when public safety is threatened, Scott said. PUCs are the state agencies that regulate public utilities.
That interpretation of the federal law does not reflect the critical role electricity plays in people's lives and livelihoods today, said Scott, whose study of the issue was published this week in the Energy Law Journal.
"If workers strike or are locked out of their jobs during a labor dispute, a utility might operate just fine, or there could be a major problem," said Scott, an attorney who spent 10 years practicing energy and regulatory law before joining the OSU faculty.
"The problems caused by an electrical outage are not easy to predict and the consequences can be severe," said Scott, whose research focuses on the transformation of utility systems, clean energy, energy efficiency and utility regulation.
Scott began studying the National Labor Relations Act and the role of public utility commissions in labor disputes involving electric utilities after following a 2012 labor dispute involving Consolidated Edison of New York.
Con Edison management locked out more than 8,000 employees after labor negotiations broke down. Union members warned the move would leave the utility with inadequate safety monitoring, deferred maintenance and threats of unsafe conditions.
But the state's public utility commission, the only regulatory agency with authority to oversee the safety and operation of Con Edison's system, announced that it lacked jurisdiction to end the lockout or get involved in the negotiations.
As the lockout wore on and severe summer weather threatened the power grid, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo urged the New York Public Service Commission to get more involved.
The dispute was ultimately settled but the case underscored the high stakes of labor disputes involving electric utilities, as well as the potential danger to public safety and the need for clarification of the authority of state public utility commissions, Scott said.
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Scott's study was supported by OSU.
High-speed reading of the genetic code should get a boost with the creation of the world's first graphene nanopores - pores measuring approximately 2 nanometers in diameter - that feature a "built-in" optical antenna. Researchers with Berkeley Lab and the University of California (UC) Berkeley have invented a simple, one-step process for producing these nanopores in a graphene membrane using the photothermal properties of gold nanorods.
"With our integrated graphene nanopore with plasmonic optical antenna, we can obtain direct optical DNA sequence detection," says Luke ...
ATLANTA, GA (November 6, 2014) – Whether allergy sufferers have symptoms that are mild or severe, they really only want one thing: relief. So it's particularly distressing that the very medication they hope will ease symptoms can cause different, sometimes more severe, allergic responses.
According to a presentation at the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI) Annual Scientific Meeting, an allergic response to a medication for allergies can often go undiagnosed. The presentation sheds light on adverse responses to topical skin preparations; ...
Berlin, Germany (November, 2014) – A specimen of the ancient horse Eurohippus messelensis has been discovered in Germany that preserves a fetus as well as parts of the uterus and associated tissues. It demonstrates that reproduction in early horses was very similar to that of modern horses, despite great differences in size and structure. Eurohippus messelensis had four toes on each forefoot and three toes on each the hind foot, and it was about the size of a modern fox terrier. The new find was unveiled at the 2014 Annual Meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology ...
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Scientists at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF) are growing the first American chestnut trees that can withstand the blight that virtually eliminated the once-dominant tree from...
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SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Scientists at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF) are growing the first American chestnut trees that can withstand the blight that virtually eliminated the once-dominant tree from the eastern ...
WASHINGTON, DC, November 6, 2014 -- Go to almost any American high school and the elements of teen social networks become quickly apparent: the cliques, the pecking orders, and the varying degrees of self-segregation by race, age, gender, and social status.
For years, sociologists have identified seemingly universal human instincts that spur this kind of sorting. These include the desires for familiarity and certainty; for control and dominance; and for security and support.
But as ubiquitous as those instincts are, students in some schools form more cliquish, hierarchical, ...
North Carolina State University researchers have developed technology that allows cyborg cockroaches, or biobots, to pick up sounds with small microphones and seek out the source of the sound. The technology is designed to help emergency personnel find and rescue survivors in the aftermath of a disaster.
The researchers have also developed technology that can be used as an "invisible fence" to keep the biobots in the disaster area.
"In a collapsed building, sound is the best way to find survivors," says Dr. Alper Bozkurt, an assistant professor of electrical and computer ...
Berlin, Germany (November, 2014) – A new study, which teamed cutting-edge engineering techniques with paleontology, has found that take-off capacity may have determined body size limits in extinct flying reptiles. The research simulated pterodactyl flight using computer modeling, and will be presented at the upcoming Society of Vertebrate Paleontology meeting in Berlin. Findings suggest that a pterodactyl with a wingspan of 12m or more would simply not be able to get off the ground.
Pterosaurs (commonly known as pterodactyls) were truly giants of the sky. With ...
For ALMA's first observations in its new and most powerful mode, researchers pointed the antennas at HL Tauri — a young star, about 450 light-years away, which is surrounded by a dusty disc [1]. The resulting image exceeds all expectations and reveals unexpectedly fine detail in the disc of material left over from star birth. It shows a series of concentric bright rings, separated by gaps [2].
"These features are almost certainly the result of young planet-like bodies that are being formed in the disc. This is surprising since such young stars are not expected to ...
Astronomers have captured the best image ever of planet formation around an infant star as part of the testing and verification process for the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array's (ALMA) new high-resolution capabilities.
This revolutionary new image reveals in astonishing detail the planet-forming disk surrounding HL Tau, a Sun-like star located approximately 450 light-years from Earth in the constellation Taurus.
ALMA uncovered never-before-seen features in this system, including multiple concentric rings separated by clearly defined gaps. These structures ...
Tiny extensions on cells, cilia, play an important role in insulin release, according to a new study, which is published in Nature Communications. The researchers report that the cilia of beta cells in the pancreas are covered with insulin receptors and that changed ciliary function can be associated with the development of type 2 diabetes.
Cilia are tiny extensions on cells and they are credited with many important functions, including transduction of signals in cells. Defects in cilia have been implied in several diseases and pathological conditions. Thus, scientists ...
