This fragility can take many forms. One nuclear power plant may age, leak, break, may be decommissioned, or be taken offline. This is a stress on a grid organized around the presence, rather than the absence, of that source of power. Or viny kudzu may creep with its unerring tenacity to the tops of local utility poles to drape wire and wood and ceramic insulators alike in a thick blanket of green. This, too, is a fragility. Foliage causes shorts and, occasionally, even more dramatic flashovers when our oh so carefully domesticated electricity goes instantly wild again and shoots like a bolt of
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