our way of life IS our polity and our way of life is non-negotiable...,

newscientist | We predict that blackouts will occur with greater frequency and greater severity due to trends in both electricity supply and demand. Supply will become increasingly precarious because of the depletion of fossil fuels, neglected infrastructure and the shift toward less reliable renewable energy. Demand, meanwhile, will grow because of rising populations and affluence.

Resource depletion is already having an effect on countries that rely on fossil fuels such as coal for electricity generation. Countries with significant renewable resources are not immune either. Weather is not predictable and is likely to become less so, courtesy of climate change: in the past decade shortages of rain for hydro dams has led to blackouts in Kenya, India, Tanzania and Venezuela.

Deregulation and privatisation have created further weaknesses in supply as there is no incentive to maintain or improve the grid. Almost three-quarters of US transmission lines and power transformers are more than 25 years old and the average age of power plants there is 30 years.

The looming threat of blackouts cannot be solely blamed on vulnerabilities in generation, however. Overconsumption is also a factor. Between 1940 and 2001, average US household electricity use rose 1300 per cent, driven largely by growing demand for air conditioning. And such demand is forecast to grow by 22 per cent in the next two decades.

Demand for aircon is also growing elsewhere. In China, ownership tripled in the decade since 1997 and aircon units already account for 20 per cent of the country's electricity consumption. A similar pattern is seen in India. Global warming will only add to demand.

Another future driver of demand is likely to be electric vehicles. The World Bank forecasts that these could total 10 per cent of all new vehicle sales by 2020, requiring a 15 to 40 per cent increase in electricity demand.

Overall, between 2008 and 2035, demand for electricity is expected to grow by 80 per cent across the world. No one knows how this will be generated.

These converging trends are already impacting the system's integrity. In the US, blackouts increased across all three five-year periods between 1995 and 2009. A report written for the Executive Office of the President concedes that the incidence of major blackouts is increasing.

It is worth reiterating what is at stake here. We analysed almost 50 significant power-outages across 26 countries. They had numerous causes, from technical failure to sabotage. Nonetheless, the same set of problems emerged.

Blackouts affect computers, microprocessors, pumps, fridges, traffic and street lights, security systems, trains and cellphone towers, with consequences across society. The economic losses can be enormous: power outages are already estimated to cost up to $180 billion a year in the US.

As the world becomes more reliant on digital technology, where interruptions of as little as one-sixtieth of a second can crash servers and computers, the negative effects will only multiply.