Death by Grid

Cannot blame the power company for this one

It should be called the Dumb Grid.

Remember the General Electric TV advertisement from the 2009 SuperBowl? It showed a scarecrow dancing from line to line on Power Towers without getting scorched? Don’t try it at home. This guy did.

The man known only as Miguel was fried to a crisp in Santiago Chile when he went dancing around the high-voltage cables, causing a massive explosion before plummeting to the ground.

The moment was caught in a dramatic amateur video filmed by one of the onlookers. Firefighters tried for 30 minutes to coax him down and placed an airbag at the foot of the towers to catch him if he fell. But his leg touched one of the cables killing him instantly and causing an explosion which reportedly set fire to two nearby houses.

Meanwhile General Electric, manufacturer of power plants, aided by the big electricity companies and lobby groups are still urging the US government to spend $1.5 trillion on the so-called Smart Grid, a way of upgrading the current wasteful energy paradigm and locking it into place for another 50-100 years.

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