Building more power plants isn't going to end the electron shortage in California—or any other state. Not without more transmission power lines to deliver the juice. As power demand increases a conservatively estimated 9% through 2004, the industry plans to add only 6,000 miles of lines, a 3% increase, to an already overtaxed system. "Over the last 10 to 15 years there has been no major new investment in transmission," says David Owens, an executive vice president at the Edison Electric institute in Washington, D.C. "It's like superhighway traffic forced onto a two-lane road."
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