An electrical grid includes the towering power lines that criss-cross the country. Electricity travels along the lines from power plants to homes and businesses. (Photo: courtesy DOE)

Monday, August 18—As the Northeast got back to normal on Monday morning, officials in Canada and the U.S. were urging consumers to conserve.

"Don't go crazy" with electrical usage, said one Canadian official. Canadians are being asked to cut their energy usage by as much as 50 percent to protect the system from breaking down again. "If people don't cooperate, the system will break," said Jim Young, Ontario's commissioner of public safety.

In the U.S., people are being asked to cutback, but not quite so much.

"We're still stabilizing our system," said Joy Faber, spokesperson for Consolidated Edison, an electric company in New York. "We're still asking our customers to conserve energy wherever possible."

Experts expected the power demands in cities like New York to increase by 12 percent once Monday commuters hit the trains and subways. Increased usage on Monday could trigger rolling blackouts, experts warned.

"We just don't have a lot of extra power," New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said. "So be careful."

With the main crisis over, officials are now looking at the cause. They are also asking why safeguards within the system did not work. North America needs more transmission lines and a more modern system for managing delivery of power over those lines, say the experts. But who is going to pay?

Modernizing the system to prevent future blackouts could cost consumers up to $50 billion in higher electric bills, according to U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham.

"Rate-payers, obviously, will pay the bill because they're the ones who benefit," he said on CBS's Face the Nation on Sunday morning. "And that's where most of the responsibility, ultimately, will be assigned."