Plants
"while business may not survive an interuption in electricity supply very well...it is not likely to build its own cogen plant...because there are suppliers who can do this more effectively".
If a function is core - you might outsource it - but you'd be crazy to rely on one outside source exclusively.
My employer purchases electricity from the big utility company. My employer is also fully capable of generating enough electricity to keep the servers humming should the utility company fail to deliver. Ditto the fiber networks interconnecting the data centers.
Does this make sense? Down time is measure in thousands of dollars per minute. Its core and the cost is dead easy to justify. I believe the generation capability leased BTW, but this is a financing detail as it is a dedicated resource.
Its not "do I outsource?" Its "how to I measure the risk of losing that capability vs the cost of providing it myself". Its always different.
The important question is "how do we tax foreign goods and services to allow US citizens to remain competitive"?
