Keeping the Lights On: A Comparison of Normal Accidents and High Reliability Organizations

Large technological systems have many modes of failure – some mundane, others exotic, some with dire consequences. Failures resulting in death and environmental degradation spring easily to mind: Chernobyl, Bhopal, Deepwater Horizon. As a large technological system, the U.S. electric power infrastructure experienced failures during major Northeast blackouts in 1965 and 2003, when large areas were left without power, and the system frequently experiences both large and small blackouts. How should we conceptualize failure in complex technological systems like electric power?