BOSTON: (CNN)-This summer's withering heat has forced some power companies to warn they are on the brink of running out of electricity. And just because it hasn't happened near you doesn't mean it won't in the future. A recent study by New York-based Allied Business Intelligence, a technology research firm, predicts that in the next 10 years a growing strain on energy resources in the United States will lead to power shortages everywhere except Middle America-with deadly results. "Lives are always lost during heat waves. It's the weakest, the sick, elderly," says ABI analyst Michael Kujawa. "Air conditioners will go off in some critical situations…and the numbers will go up."