Once again, DR1 News seems to be ahead of the news itself. Several weeks ago, DR1 News reported that the business community in Santiago and surrounding areas was working hard to obtain approval of the so-called ?Electricity Superhighway?. In its Sunday economy section, the List?n Diario reported on the request by the Santiago Chamber of Commerce to institute this much-needed electrical network. According to the Chamber?s report, the new 345-kilowatt connection between the electricity-rich South and the electricity-poor North would supply a steady and reliable source of electricity to the area for the next 15 to 20 years, as well as provide a base for a new fiber-optic network that would change the way people do business. According to the business leaders of Santiago, the main advantage of the new network, however, would be the elimination of a significant portion of the power lost in transmission. ?The energy problem is one of national importance, but in the North we are faced with a peculiar problem, and that is that the North is not a net energy producer. On the other hand we have the South and East of the country, where the installed capacity exceeds demand,? said a representative of the Chamber. In 2002, the total electric production for the Dominican Republic was 10,448,942 megawatts of electricity, of which 3,411,421 megawatts were lost in transmission. The proposed superhighway would reduce these losses by half and produce a savings of US$74.2 million. This amount of money could be used to create as many as 52,000 new jobs according to the Santiago Chamber of Commerce.