[TEXT ON SCREEN] BACK TO BLACK?

[ASSURAS] Eight years ago, the biggest blackout in U.S. history left millions in the dark. Has enough been done to make sure it doesn't happen again? A rare inside look at how the nation's electricity is controlled.

If a blackout's happening, what are you going to see?

[MIKE BRYSON] The yellow and purple lines and the green lines turning white, which means those lines are out of service.

[TEXT ON SCREEN] SECURITY WARNING

[ASSURAS] Plus, a chilling assessment from a former CIA director on the power grid's vulnerability to attacks.

[JAMES WOOLSEY, FORMER CIA DIRECTOR, FOUNDATION FOR DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES] A so-called "Smart Grid" that is as vulnerable as what we've got is not smart at all, it's a really, really stupid grid.

[TEXT ON SCREEN] GETTING OFF THE GRID

[ASSURAS] And getting off the grid. People creating their own power and living in style.

[ELAINE BUDDEN, REALTOR, THREE RIVERS] There's nothing we do not have here. Wireless Internet, washer/dryer, refrigeration. We have everything.

[ASSURAS] We'll show you how they do it. This is "energyNOW!"

[TEXT ON SCREEN] THALIA ASSURAS, energyNOW!

[ASSURAS] Hello, everyone. I'm Thalia Assuras. Welcome to "energyNOW!", a weekly look at America's energy challenges and what we're doing about them. And one of the biggest challenges is just keeping the lights on, literally. It's something we take for granted. Enter a dark room, flick a switch, the light goes on. It's hot, we turn on the air conditioner, and we're refreshed. We really don't think about the power until it goes out. Those of you living in heat stroke parts of the country know that the electricity grid keeping your A/C running is being stressed to the max. Drought-stricken Texas, for instance, has declared several energy emergencies this month, asking consumers to conserve power in order to prevent blackouts. For the most part, the national power grid is stable, but that was not the case eight years ago, when, on August 14, 2003, a million square miles of the Midwest and Northeast experienced the biggest blackout in U.S. history.

[MAN PLAYING SAXOPHONE]

[ASSURAS] 50 million people in eight states and parts of Canada found themselves coping in the dark and stifling August heat for days.

[MAN] We actually have a very serious problem.

[TEXT ON SCREEN] New York

[ASSURAS] Starting in the afternoon, subways stopped, forcing evacuations. Hundreds resorted to walking across the Brooklyn Bridge.

[MAN] Now they have taken to the roadway.

[ASSURAS] Traffic was a mess.

[WOMAN] Pedestrians, be patient.

[ASSURAS] Everyday life more or less ground to a halt.

[WOMAN] No TV, no radio, no computer, no air-conditioning, no refrigerator, no freezer.

[ASSURAS] By the time it was over, the blackout had contributed to 11 deaths and cost the economy as much as $10 billion.

[TEXT ON SCREEN] Cleveland

[ASSURAS] All because a power line near Cleveland sagged into a tree, causing a short. Operators failed to contain the outage and it cascaded into a crisis. And it wasn't the first time. In 1965, 30 million people in the east went without power because of malfunctioning lines in Canada. And in 1977, lightning strikes in New York took power out to nine million people, sparking chaos and riots.

[TEXT ON SCREEN] CAN IT HAPPEN AGAIN?

So, can it happen again? Has the electricity grid been improved enough to make it more reliable since that big meltdown eight years ago? And considering how much more we're demanding of our electricity infrastructure -- all our newfangled digital devices, adding new power sources like wind and solar, plus electric vehicles -- you might wonder what's being done to make the grid more resilient, reliable, and maybe even a bit smarter.

From New York's Times Square to Seattle, and all our homes and businesses in between, what keeps them and our electronics running is, of course, electricity, pulsing through the grid.

[MASSOUD AMIN, ELECTRICAL ENGINEER ] It's the most complex, and, at the same time, the most amazing engineering achievement of the 20th century.

[ASSURAS] The grid is so amazing, says electrical engineer Massoud Amin, that an elite science panel rated it even higher than man's landing on the Moon.

[ARMSTRONG] That's one small step for man...

[AMIN] It underpins our economy, Our quality of life, our society -- everything we depend on.

[ASSURAS] There are actually four distinct grids, or interconnections, covering the U.S. mainland and parts of Canada, creating a web of 450,000 miles of transmission lines, carrying electricity from more than 6,000 power plants to 140 million customers.

But all of that can be compromised. Like it was on that hot day of the massive meltdown in 2003.

[CLARK GELLINGS, ELECTRIC POWER RESEARCH INSTITUTE] When there's hot weather and there's power flow on wires, wires sag. Those wires sag, then hit trees that shouldn't have been there. Period.

[ASSURAS] That's it?

[GELLING] Yeah. Then...

[ASSURAS] Oh.

[GELLING] Then, we can't recover quickly enough because we don't have good information about the situation.

[ASSURAS] Since 2003, some corrections have been made to prevent major disasters, but over the past decade, the number of smaller outages has doubled, from 149 in the first part of the decade, to 349 in the second, costing up to $180 billion a year. The biggest culprit -- aging equipment.

[TEXT ON SCREEN] Outages affecting 50,000+ customers: 200-2004,149; 2005-2009, 349

[AMIN] The system that was built predominantly in the '50s, '60s, '70s, and early part of '80s is being harvested more than seeds are being planted in. In other words, you're milking the cow dry.

[TEXT ON SCREEN] Building is closed due to power outage

[TEXT ON SCREEN] Building is closed today

[TEXT ON SCREEN] Closed No power

[ASSURAS] And that's why power outages can happen at any time, anywhere. Even the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, FERC, the nation's power industry watchdog, found itself in the dark when the electricity went out in Washington, D.C., this June.

[TEXT ON SCREEN] OUTAGE NOTICE. June 2, 2011 6:19 a.m. – FERC is closed due to the Pepco power outage.

[ASSURAS] Kind of ironic, wasn't it, to have power out for two days?

[JOHN WELLINGHOFF, CHAIRMAN, FERC] It was a little hard to tell people that FERC was out of power. A lot of people said they knew that a long time ago, but it was not something that was fun.

[ASSURAS] And stresses on the grid are surging. Think of our daily energy demands alone. According to the Energy Information Administration, homes with central air-conditioning have almost tripled since the '70s. We're buying more and bigger TVs and plugging in more electronic devices, like cell phones and iPads every day.

[GELLING] If you have a photo frame at home, you know that if every home put one of those in, you would have to build five new 250-megawatt coal-fired power plants to supply the photo frames of the world.

[ASSURAS] And most of those devices are being plugged-in in major metropolitan areas along the east and west coast, causing choke points.

The system is not modern.

[GELLING] Agreed, but we do a lot more now. We're beginning to put sensors in place that do a better job in monitoring. We've done so much better in training the operator. We've done so much better in understanding how to keep the right of way clean under those lines, trim those trees, monitor the trimming.

[ASSURAS] The three Ts: training, trees, and technology improvements -- they are mandated by NERC, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation.

[GERRY CAULEY, CEO, NERC] One of the things we can do is we can enforce compliance, to get everybody's attention to follow the rules.

[TEXT ON SCREEN] Norristown, PA

[ASSURAS] So we went to see how it's all working with the country's biggest grid operator, PJM.

If we're looking at, for example, the middle map, and if a blackout's happening, what are you going to see?

[MIKE BRYSON] The middle map there is our transmission map. You would start seeing the yellow and purple lines and green lines turning white, which means those lines are out of service.

[ASSURAS] Operations Manager Mike Bryson showed us how faster computers are helping divert electricity around problem areas, to make sure your power stays on.

[BRYSON] We'll get the tools that will say, rather than we're seeing data that's seconds old, we may be seeing data that's sub-seconds to help us with our decisions.

[ASSURAS] Tools like these robot-like sensors being developed by the Electric Power Research Institute, EPRI. And then there is this contraption.

[TOM NELSON, NATL INST. OF STANDARDS & TECHNOLOGY] This would be an indication of something that's really bad has happened.

[ASSURAS] The Phasor Measurement Unit, or PMU. It's being developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology to provide grid operators with situational awareness.

[NELSON] It's taking data and transmitting that data back maybe a hundred times a second, so the operator can see what's happening. It's like an MRI for the electric systems.

[ASSURAS] Knowing what's happening in realtime, something that wasn't possible in 2003.

[TEXT ON SCREEN] Cleveland August 14, 2003 Blackout

[NELSON] They would have been able to see that things were happening. They could have taken corrective action and prevented the widespread blackout.

[ASSURAS] The hope for the future? An electric grid that can not only detect problems but fix them before it's too late.

And are we talking, really, about getting to what's called a "Smart Grid"?

[WELLINGHOFF] Ultimately, we are -- a Smart Grid both at the distribution level for the individual consumer, where that consumer can know more about their own energy use and control their costs as well, and then also know it better at the bulk power system level.

[GELLINGS] It's going to help me incorporate renewable resources. It's going to help me make sure that people who buy electric vehicles can supply them. It's going to take all of those and integrate them together in a very effective way.

[TEXT ON SCREEN] To learn more about smart grid water heaters go to energynow.com

[ASSURAS] To get the Smart Grid started, millions of Smart Meters are being installed. They allow homeowners to program appliances to switch on when electricity rates are lower. EPRI estimates a fully evolved Smart Grid will cost almost $500 billion over the next 20 years. But the question still remains -- given the grid today, can a 2003 meltdown happen again?

[BRYSON] It certainly could happen again.

[WELLINGHOFF] Well, we hope it couldn't happen again.

[GELLING] Yes, it could happen again.

[ASSURAS] You might be wondering what the Smart Grid could end up costing you. Well, probably an extra $9 to $12 a month on your utility bill, according to the Electric Power Research Institute. None of us likes to pay more for our electricity, but listen to this. Analysts at the financial consulting firm the Brattle Group say transmission investment alone through 2030 would support up to 200,000 fulltime jobs every year and stimulate the economy by $30 billion to $40 billion annually.

One of the points raised time and again by so many of those we spoke with is that our current digital century is drawing more and more juice from the grid. Actually, industry officials have been warning about the increasing electricity demands for decades. Take a look at this energyTHEN from 1957.

[Film projector running]

[TEXT ON SCREEN] energyTHEN

[FILM NARRATOR ] 10 years ago, the average use in an American family was about 1,500 kilowatt-hours of power a year. Now, with so many more household chores being done electrically, about 3,000 kilowatt-hours are needed. And 10 years from now, The average American family may be using twice this amount. Already, the United States, with but 6% of the world's population, uses over 40% of the world's electric power. It's one reason why we enjoy the highest living standard of any nation in the world. In the years ahead, our electric power consumption will continue to increase. More for our homes and more for our factories will bring the nation's total demand to at least four times the present level by 1975.

[TEXT ON SCREEN] 1960, 1965, 1970, 1975

[ASSURAS] We did some checking to find out if that prediction was correct. In fact, it took much longer for electricity consumption to reach four times the level of the 1950s. It didn't happen until 1989, according to the Energy Information Administration. And these days, we're using about five times the power consumed in the '50s.

Still to come...

[TEXT ON SCREEN] GETTING OFF THE GRID

[ASSURAS] Getting off the power grid, but not exactly roughing it. How some families live without paying a cent to the utility companies.

[TEXT ON SCREEN] THE GRID THREAT

[ASSURAS] But first, former CIA Director James Woolsey on the grid's vulnerability to attack. Just how safe are we?

[BREAK]

[BOY, Gasping, coughing]

[ANNOUNCER] We're not asking for your pity or your sympathy. We're not asking for your time or your wallet.

[WOMAN] Don't cry.

[ANNOUNCER] We're just asking for your promise. Every year in this country, harmful emissions cause thousands of illnesses, asthma-related hospital visits, and even deaths.

[GIRL] Hi, Mommy.

[TEXT ON SCREEN] Alex, Asthmatic – age 11. Ella, Asthmatic – age 8. Kamira, Asthmatic – age 3. Sophia, Asthmatic – age 11.Chris, Asthmatic – age 9.

[ANNOUNCER] We're asking every citizen, elected official, and parent in America to promise to protect our children from dangerous pollution. Don't just support cleaner air for our kids -- promise it.

[TEXT ON SCREEN] Make the promise. peoplenotpolluters.org. www. peoplenotpolluters.org. BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS. Noli, Asthmatic – age 7.

[END BREAK]

[TEXT ON SCREEN] energyNOW!

[TEXT ON SCREEN] JUNE 9, 2011

[LEON PANETTA] I've often said that there's a strong likelihood that the next Pearl Harbor that we confront could very well be a cyber attack that cripples our power systems, our grid.

[ASSURAS] That was former CIA Director and now Defense Secretary Leon Panetta at his Senate Confirmation Hearing in June. He is among a growing number of intelligence and security officials who are concerned about potential attacks against the nation's infrastructure, including the power grid. And think about it -- everything from transportation to water treatment depends on the grid. To help us assess the threats and what's being done to counter them, we're joined for this week's MIX by James Woolsey, the CIA director during the Clinton administration.

[TEXT ON SCREEN] theMIX

[ASSURAS] He is currently chairman of the nonpartisan policy group Foundation for Defense of Democracies and is also a venture partner at Lux Capital Management, specializing in alternative energy ventures. Thanks very much for joining us. Let's turn to Leon Panetta, who said, the next Pearl Harbor could be an attack on the grid. Was he overstating it?

[TEXT ON SCREEN] PROTECTING THE POWER GRID

[WOOLSEY] Not at all, I think Leon's right on the money. Whether it's a physical attack on transformers or a cyber attack, it's entirely possible, and without the electric grid, since, as you said, everything else depends on it, when it goes down, we're not in the 1970s, pre-Web, we're in the 1870s, pre-grid, and we don't have enough plow horses or pump handles.

[ASSURAS] So, what does that mean right across the country? How dramatic would it be, and would government agencies, institutions, be vulnerable as well?

[WOOLSEY] A lot of businesses and some homes and government will be okay for two or three or four days, because people have generators and some diesel fuel. But beyond that, you're back in really primitive circumstances. And the military is no better off than anybody else.

[ASSURAS] But how would that kind of an attack scenario actually happen? What keeps you awake at night?

[WOOLSEY] Well, probing the grid as a hacker, and leaving malware in it, which could be triggered by your government, let's say, at some point, China or someplace else.

[ASSURAS] Software somebody deposited in there.

[WOOLSEY] The difference between doing those two things is a couple or three key strokes. So, yes, I imagine parts of our grid already have malware in them that could be triggered by whoever put it in.

[ASSURAS] In fact, the McAfee Security Agency said that 70 government institutions as well as companies do potentially have malware in them. They've been mined for data. As a former CIA director -- I mean, they're saying that's what's there now -- do you know of more serious attacks that have happened that we don't know about?

[WOOLSEY] It's sometimes very difficult to tell whether something is intentional or not. There was a big outage in Florida a few years ago. There was a huge one in Italy a few years ago. You had the one in the east coast of the United States and eastern Canada in '03. And sometimes there are disputes as to whether it was all or partially caused by something other than just a tree branch touching a power line. And people tend, sometimes, not to agree.

[ASSURAS] So it could have been something else, in fact, in 2003, maybe not that tree near Cleveland?

[WOOLSEY] I think that one was very closely investigated. Chances are it was a natural occurrence. Part of the problem is that the grid is so vulnerable. If a tree branch touching a power line can take 80 gigawatts -- essentially 80 nuclear power plants' worth of power -- offline, and take 50 million people out of having electricity for several days, as that one did -- terrorists are a lot smarter than tree branches.

[ASSURAS] Let's talk about, then, the protective measures that are in place. I was on the phone last week with an assistant secretary at the Department of Energy who said that the Department is spending $30 million a year staying ahead of these cyber security challenges, and also the watchdog over utilities says that it has some standards in place, for example, background checks on employees who want to work for utilities. Are those measures enough?

[WOOLSEY] Not really. They're, essentially, nothing. Because, first of all, DoE doesn't really have any authority over the grid. Nobody has responsibility for the survivability and protection and security of the grid. The FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, has responsibility over the transmission grid for some aspects, many aspects, of reliability, but they don't have the authority for security, and neither does NERC, the so-called "watchdog." It's not much of a watchdog. It's essentially the trade association of the utilities. And it's been one of the big problems. They have not done anything really effective in protecting the grid.

[ASSURAS] But you're saying, also, on a federal level, there is no one in charge of cyber security, policy, and defense.

[WOOLSEY] No one in charge of security for the grid, whether it's cyber or transformers or whatever. You can search forever through the federal code to try to find who that person might be.

[ASSURAS] And you think it should be the president?

[WOOLSEY] Well, I think there's a very good reason for it, perhaps, to be the chairman of FERC. But to try out to see what would work, I think, having the Defense Department work with the local utility is the best. What they're doing now, they're constructing what they call a "Smart Grid." And they're going to make it easier for you and me to call our homes on our cell phone and turn down our air-conditioning on a hot afternoon if we're not there. Great, but that may well mean that a hacker in Shanghai with his cell phone could do the same thing or worse. And a so-called "Smart Grid" that is as vulnerable as what we've got is not smart at all, it's a really, really stupid grid.

[ASSURAS] Vulnerabilities is what you're telling me. We're not taking care of them.

[WOOLSEY] We're not.

[ASSURAS] Jim Woolsey, thanks so much.

[WOOLSEY] Thank you.

[ASSURAS] And there's another threat to the power grid looming out there -- the Sun and its solar storms.

[TEXT ON SCREEN] thehotZone

[ASSURAS] That's what's in this week's "energyNOW!" hotZONE.

Recently, huge explosions on the Sun's surface sent millions of tons of highly charged particles speeding toward Earth. The U.S. government warned those particles could interfere with the planet's magnetic field and cause major fluctuations to the grid. That didn't happen this time. But in 1989, a similar storm took out power for six million people in Canada. And in 2003, flares caused widespread chaos, from rerouting planes to an hour-long power outage in Sweden. The National Academy of Sciences says severe space weather events could inflict $1 trillion to $2 trillion in damage across the world and it might take a decade for the economy to fully bounce back. Solar storms peak about every 11 years and the next peak period is expected in 2013.

When we come back, we'll take you where the grid don't go. Meet some pioneers who've learned to live the good life, "off the grid."

[TEXT ON SCREEN] LIVING OFF THE GRID

[TEXT ON SCREEN] 70% of U.S. power transmission lines are more than 25 years old. SOURCE: DEPT. OF ENERGY.

[BREAK]

[TEXT ON SCREEN] Can I recycle a beer bottle with a lime wedge stuck inside? Natch, but limes make good compost. Just sayin’. www.grist.org. laugh now or the planet gets it.

[ANNOUNCER] Clean energy is a top priority with consumers and politicians across this country and throughout Maryland. And now there's an easy way to learn how clean energy can be a part of your life -- in your home, at work, as a career.

[TEXT ON SCREEN] MARYLAND CLEAN ENERGY SUMMIT 2011. Investing in Energy to Generate Jobs

[ANNOUNCER] The Maryland Clean Energy Summit is your chance to get all the information you want, from solar and wind to thermostats and energy suppliers. The state's foremost clean energy leaders will be presenting at this hallmark conference, so don't miss it.

[TEXT ON SCREEN] MARYLAND CLEAN ENERGY SUMMIT 2011. Investing in Energy to Generate Jobs. August 25-27, 2011. Marriott North Bethesda Hotel and Conference Center, Bethesda, Maryland. Register at www.mcecsummit.org. 301-738-6280.

[END BREAK]

[TEXT ON SCREEN] energy NOW!

[ASSURAS] Welcome back. If you're not watching "energyNOW!" on a mobile device, you've got the TV or computer on, right? Maybe the A/C is cranked up in your home as well to keep you cool. Maybe you've got something else plugged in and running. As we've been saying, all those devices pull power from the grid, for the most part, but there are some people who shun utility companies and produce their own power. "energyNOW!"'s Patty Kim discovered some unlikely places where people are taking charge and living "off the grid."

[TEXT ON SCREEN] takingCHARGE

[KIM] When you're as plugged-in as this... you'd think the electricity bill would go through the roof. But this homeowner never pays an electric bill, ever.

[TEXT ON SCREEN] Ontario, Canada

[KIM] That's because Bill Kemp has his very own power supply -- a system of solar panels that keeps his home, located just outside Ottawa, Canada, running just like yours and mine.

It's called living "off the grid." Yep, that means Bill Kemp doesn't rely on electricity from any utility company to power his home. He's completely independent. Now, when you hear the words "off-gridder," what's the first thing that comes to mind?

I'm betting you didn't picture this.

I got to be honest, I honestly thought -- I pictured a guy out in the woods, kind of like that, frying a raccoon over a Bunsen burner.

Bill, an energy consultant and best-selling author of "The Renewable Energy Handbook," and his wife Lorraine, are one of an estimated 180,000 families living in off-grid homes in North America today.

So this is going to be my first taste of a solar-brewed cup of cappuccino.

Bill's journey began on the grid. He and Lorraine wanted to move, but they found out it would cost a small fortune to bring electric lines in, so they decided instead to invest that money into building a new home, off the grid.

[TEXT ON SCREEN] Bill Kemp. LIVES OFF THE GRID

[KEMP] Well, a lot of people thought that we were just plain crazy. Lorraine was very supportive. Her question was, "Can I still run my hairdryer?" I said, "Absolutely, I guarantee that."

[KIM] That was 20 years ago and they've never looked back. Two large rotating solar arrays track the Sun every 90 seconds, each array generating over 1,000 watts of energy, enough to run a large appliance.

How do you go from the Sun, billions of miles away, how does that thing run your hairdryer in the morning?

[KEMP] Okay, well, it's really very simple. The sunlight comes in and hits these photovoltaic panels. These are like great big integrated circuits on steroids.

[KIM] The sunlight charges a bank of batteries in Bill's basement, feeds into an inverter, a device that converts the energy into normal household power, then flows through the home.

[KEMP] And then into your electrical devices -- the hairdryer.

[KIM] Long after the Sun goes down, the charged batteries keep the lights on, and anything else Bill needs, well into the night. On a cloudy day, a 1,500-watt wind turbine picks up the slack. And in case of Armageddon or a spell of gray skies and no wind, a backup half-biodiesel, half-diesel generator kicks in to charge up the batteries.

[KEMP] It would be pretty tough to lose power here.

[KIM] Oh, and did I mention this living off the grid is pretty low-maintenance? All Bill has to do is pour distilled water into the batteries about two to three times a year.

My uncle gets a colonoscopy more often than you check your batteries, okay?

Bill's nearest neighbors are about a half a mile away, and a heck of a lot farther if you're looking for a fellow off-gridder, but here in central Oregon, believe it or not, there's an entire community that's off the grid.

[TEXT ON SCREEN] Culver, OR

[KIM] This is the Three Rivers Recreational Area, a one-of-a-kind gated community made up of about 300 off-grid homes, everything from million-dollar mansions to trailers. A solar-run fire hall. Heck, there's even a solar-powered yurt, a traditional Mongolian house.

[TEXT ON SCREEN] To see more of this solar powered yurt go to energynow.com

[KIM] This is bigger than my apartment in D.C., and I would say maybe a little nicer.

So, Delores, do you ever just look around here and just go, "Oh, my gosh, my husband and I started this whole thing"?

[DOLORES STILLS, CO-FOUNDER. THREE RIVERS] Yeah, sometimes, yeah, I do. Sometimes I'm proud, and sometimes I think, "Oh, what a monster!"

[KIM] Delores Stills and her late husband, Doug, pioneered this community. They purchased the nearly 4,000 acres of land in the late 1960s, made it into a campground with individual lots for sale. Back then, being off the grid wasn't a choice.

[LORNE STILLS, MARINA MANAGER, THREE RIVERS] There was no power here. We had propane lights that put out about as much light as a cigarette lighter.

[KIM] This is the original cabin built by Lorne's father. Lorne and his mom now live on the grid in a nearby town. They haven't laid eyes on this cabin for 20 years, until now.

[LORRAINE STILLS] Oh, my goodness!

[LORNE STILLS] Holy cow.

[LORRAINE STILLS] This is different.

[KIM] It was here Lorne's father tinkered with 12-volt lights and experimented with wind power. By the late 1970s, this off-grid community was flourishing, but for real-estate agent Elaine Budden, it wasn't exactly love at first sight.

[BUDDEN] I mean, I'm hardly city-slick, but it was like, holy smoke!

[KIM] Eventually, Elaine came around.

[BUDDEN] The peace and quiet, the stars at night, the wildlife -- it got to the point where we thought, you know, we could make this work.

[KIM] She and her husband David moved into the area 17 years ago. They settled into a prefab home they'd expanded, connected it to water, and wired it to a modest 800-watt solar system.

[BUDDEN] There's nothing we do not have here. Wireless Internet, washer/dryer, refrigeration -- we have everything.

[KIM] But if you can't live without your soy no-foam latte, then this lifestyle might not be your cup of tea. You are 25 miles from the nearest Starbucks or supermarket and you can't order in pizza. For Elaine and her fellow off-gridders in Canada...

[MAN] Here you go, babe.

[KIM] It's a small price to pay for a life unplugged. In other words, the good life. In Ontario, Canada, Patty Kim, "energyNOW!"

[ASSURAS] Bill and Lorraine Kemp say their getting off the grid had its upfront cost -- about $40,000 worth. For other homeowners, the cost really depends on how much electricity you think you need to live comfortably.

If you'd like to say goodbye to your utility company and start generating your own power, go to our Web site, energynow.com, where you can learn more about living off the grid.

[TEXT ON SCREEN] energynow.com

[ASSURAS] You can also read our blogs, watch all our episodes, and catch online extras. And you can reach out to us on YouTube, Facebook, or Twitter. Search for us at energyNOWnews. That's it for this week's "energyNOW!" I'm Thalia Assuras. See you next week.

[BREAK]

[TEXT ON SCREEN] Alexandria, VA

[ANNOUNCER] For decades, this coal-fired power plant near Washington, DC has prompted health complaints. More than 60 years old, it has often been charge with environmental violations.

[TEXT ON SCREEN] Rally to Close the Plant, April 17, 2011

[ANNOUNCER] Many say it's time to close it down. But what comes next? Now there's a plan.

[TEXT ON SCREEN] Potomac River Green

[ASSURAS] Potomac River Green is an innovative blueprint for tomorrow. It opens up the riverfront and creates hundreds of jobs. Good for Alexandria and good for the DC Metro Area.

[TEXT ON SCREEN] www.potomacrivergreen.com

[ASSURAS] Potomac River Green.

[TEXT ON SCREEN] Potomac River Green. Potomac River Green is a project of the American Clean Skies Foundation, Washington, D.C.

[END BREAK]

[END SHOW]