Interstate Electricity Transmission Superhighway Essential to Growth of Low-Carbon Technologies
Big money is backing wind power, and the number of investors ready to step up to the plate continues to grow. But according to an article in Renewable Energy World, that growth is hampered by a lack of a nationwide “electronic transmission superhighway”.
In the sixties America created the interstate superhighways that now crisscross our nation. Now, our country’s energy security depends on a new interstate initiative. Will the U.S. government step up to the plate?
“Across the country, hundreds of wind projects comprising tens of thousands of wind turbines are on hold because no one wants to step forward and pay for upgrades that will primarily benefit others. The obvious solution to this problem is a policy framework that will allow firms interested in building new transmission to collect the costs of the infrastructure investment from those who will benefit from it.”
Richard Sergel, president and CEO of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), and Kevin Kolevar, DOE’s assistant secretary for electricity delivery and energy reliability, have pointed out in recent testimony before Congress that all low-carbon technologies, from large-scale wind projects to concentrated solar power, and even nuclear and “clean coal” technologies, require an updated electric grid because they are most often located in remote areas. The map above shows the Transmission Superhighway Vision put forth by the American Wind Energy Association and American Electric Power, an investor-owned utility that spans 11 states.
Photo Credit: AWEA
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Beyond speeding the transition to wind power, a new transmission grid is needed to avoid power disruptions like the electricity blackout of 2003. The American Institute of Physics reports that government deregulation has ignored the inherent physics of the nation’s power grid, which should be viewed as one big machine. This has created serious problems:
- Instead of treating electricity as an essential service, it is treated as a commodity
- Power companies compete regionally and avoid sharing usage and transmission data, such as blackout statistics
- The national grid is not viewed as the single “machine” that it is, resulting in congestion at the regional level when demand increases unexpectedly
- Independent power producers create generating units at “essentially random” locations due to low labor costs or lax state regulations, or tax incentive
- The cost of electricity has increased to the end-users
It is hoped that a new administration will finally address the state of our national electricity grid. If it doesn’t it won’t be because of cost. “Given that electricity transmission infrastructure typically remains in service for 50 years or more, the cost of the investment for the average household would be equivalent to about US $0.35 per month, less than the cost of a postage stamp.” –Michael Goggin, AWEA, in Renewable Energy World
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Agree 100% on the need for the Super Highway. Another longtime energy industry expert and transmission developer recently advocated that very same idea.
Anbaric Holding’s Ed Krapels, who helped develop the independent HVDC transmission project between the PJM market and Long Island, claims a national high voltage transmission Super Highway is needed to ensure the ability to deliver on our renewable energy potential.
His paper: http://www.anbaricholding.com/PDF/A%20National%20Electric%20Superhighway.pdf
If the U.S. had chosen to be a moral people, and leaving Iraqi oil alone, and following Al Gore, decided to develop the South Western deserts, with the technology of the times - solar/thermal-molten sodium - electricity installations, for the same amount of money as that war cost, ($650 Billion), today, we would be tapping into the largest, renewable, sustainable, energy source the world has ever known. It would have paid every energy bill in the U.S.A. for maintenance fees only - FOREVER! It would be equivalent to an oil field that can NEVER run dry! Low cost electric power, and storeable hydrogen gasoline replacement from the electricity, for all!
After the millions of murders, and $650 billions of dollars, borrowed from our children’s futures and pissed away, with thousands of our own and others maimed and disfigured for life, millions of families utterly destroyed, ours and theirs, we are no closer to Iraqi oil production than the Iraqis are!
The next time you hear a blithering idiot spoiled brat, drunken, drug addicted, sociopath, rich Arabic saber dancing daddie’s boy oilman, stand at a microphone and threaten YOUR safety with someone ELSE’S weapons, remember what you lost America, remember, and weep! (also see http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=a-solar-grand-plan)