Power Transmission -- Yes, the Problem is Real

Stephen Lacey’s piece Is the Transmission 'Problem' Real? is a good and fair analysis of certain of the gating factors that limit the penetration of renewables. The article notes that the argument that the grid needs to be upgraded in order to increase the overall percentage of clean energy in the mix is specious – at least in certain cases – a red herring thrown in to confuse and distract advocates and drive more profits for the utilities. There is a lot of truth here, especially in California, the site of the examples that Stephen uses in his commentary.

But let's look at the transmission issue on a national or continental scale. I know there are tons of smart people – from Bill McKibben to thousands of other authors – who look to individuals as the solution to the energy problem. McKibben, for example, sees a future in which there is a "farmers’ market" of energy, where everyone is his own utility, putting his unused electrons back onto the grid. ::continue::

While it’s hard to disagree with this, there is most definitely a matter of scale. With our growing population of energy-hungry consumers, utility-scale renewables appears to me to be the only way to get this done. Yet renewable resources are localized: the sun shines hottest in the southwestern deserts, the wind blows hardest in the plains, the mountains have the best geothermal resources, etc. And this is where the transmission issue comes in.

As with most aspects of the world energy problem, the difficulty here is almost exclusively political. In particular, we’re being told that, for legal reasons, we can’t have a national high-voltage grid. And unfortunately, the US Supreme Court didn’t help the cause in its recent ruling, either.

But give me a break. We have crystal-clear eminent domain legislation to create corridors for transmission lines. We have national pathways for the transportation of automobiles, railway cars, natural gas, etc. – and that land didn’t come from donations from philanthropists. There should be nothing new or scary about this. We simply need to get this done.

-- Craig Shields is editor of 2GreenEnergy.com and author of Renewable Energy Facts and Fantasties (2010, Clean Energy Press)