Here in the West we have the Pacific Intertie, a HVDC line, running from the Pacific Northwest to Southern California that ships hydro power south.

On a more local scale we have a set of transmission lines connecting us here behind the Redwood Curtain with the outside world of the central valleys of the state.  

I could stick an electron in the pipe here on the isolated coast on which I live and it could turn up in Seattle, San Diego, Nevada, and I assume the other Southwest states such as Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado.  Then up to Utah....

I would think that most of the country is connected in some way to regional grids.  Those grids already control real estate.  People have more or less made their piece with the big wires running through their areas.

HVDC is a very effective (low loss) way to ship power.  That means that we can forgo the most direct/shortest distance route if it means less money for new real estate and fewer permit problems.

Upgrade/replace existing towers if they aren't engineered to carry the extra weight.  String some new wires.  

Where are the gaps in the country that have to be bridged?  Where would we have to establish new transmission routes?  

Are there already railroad right of ways that could be used?

What do you mean by 'improve energy efficiency by 3-4%'? Reduce transmission losses by 3-4%?

If so, burying cables and going to the huge bother and expense of surrounding them w liquid nitrogen for such a puny gain seems pointless.

?

Whiskerfish

why do we have some pathetic helpless view of ourselves, so we need Big Energy, Big Government, Big Oil, Big Banks, Big Developers, Big Agra, on an on, to "solve" our "problems?"  

this article, like 90% of the others i see on this subject, is an argument for more dependence, less reliability, more monopolies, less opportunity for ratepayers, more eminent domain, less job creation, more Big Energy pricing and supply manipulation, and less economic stimulus.

clearly, if one spends more than 10 minutes thinking about the Best Way, rather than a bandaid on the Old Crappy Way, we will come to the conclusion that structures should be as close to Net Zero as possible, with some producing more power than they use (and getting PAID for it, via feed in tariffs) and some needing more power than they produce (with them PAYING) for it.

the Big Remote Combustion, Long Transmission, Robber Baron era is OVER.  we need to fight for our rights as taxpayers, ratepayers, land owners, and access holders to public lands and STOP the rape of our open spaces and citizenry to prop up Big Energy profiteering in an era where Sun and Wind are going to be dominant "fuels."

generous feed in tariffs and generous tax credits for point of use generation/conservation/storage will rapidly scale up renewable energy, will reduce demand, will efficiently use existing grid, will provide economic stimulus - both in LOCAL skilled jobs, and in checks going to homeowners - and will keep our desert carbon sinks and wildlife habitats functioning as they are supposed to function.

this whole Big (ahem) "Renewables" interim step is super destructive, super expensive, and will only guarantee that there is no money left for US.  please support local, point of use solutions and incentives, and make sure your legislators know we are opposed to Big Energy monopolists getting yet another massive handout.

the greenest energy is that which you needn't ever produce.

Before they spend 100 billion on buried HVDC, energy policy wizards should realize that given distributed smart grid technology, rooftop solar cogeneration, efficiency, and ground source heating/cooling energy storage; the present grid would have 5 times the capacity it really needs.

The old central fully dispatchable dumb grid had to be over built, it works on the brownout, blackout plagued model that the electrical system has to be designed for the greatest possible load, ie., everyone turning on everything in their home, all factories at peak demand, and a heat wave that melts transformers all happening at once.

We see how reliable that model is.

A smart grid can control and time demand and store power for later needs, that reduces peaks to a manageable level.  For instance, it can use ground source cooling to cool a mall when supply peaks, then that coolness stored in the floor allows the building to coast through the rest of the 24 hour cycle.

The government already owns the right of way on which power lines, pipelines, train tracks, and cables for information travel, private companies own the wires, tracls, and pipe.  We the people could actually exert power through our legislators to creat an electron superhighway out of that mess.

But it would take smart grid techology to measure and keep accounting for the flow.  That is ready to happen.  It could use 50 billion and building a few more HVDC lines berween high energy supply regions and high demand regions could use the other 50 billion.  that's a good compromise.

Incentivize smart grids and build out a few more key power lines.  Without a way to measure power flow to and from suppliers and consumers, through tansporting companies, how can legislation free up the flow from monopoly forces?  

It can't, and that's how monopoly industries like it.  Central control.  Big power plants, big nukes, big coal, big (evil, earth destroying) mess.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

The "It's a conspiricy, man!" and turn it hard to the down side, please....

We've got a zillion players in the energy production/distribution game.  There's no company called "Big Evil".

Sure, companies would like to maximize their profit.  Just like you'd like to minimize your expense.  (And that doesn't make you "Little Evil".)

Without big players we're all going to be sitting around in the dark.  It takes an economy of scale to make energy affordable.  (Except, perhpas, for those very few individuals who have year-round hydro potential.)

Because of the nature of transmission/distribution it pretty much has to be either a government owned or single-company owned grid.  I'll opt for a privately owned grid with reasonable levels of government regulation to avoid the evil side of monopolization.

We've got a pretty good system.  Spend some time in a less developed country and see if your opinion isn't modified.

It does need serious upgrading and some regulation tweaks.  

Individuals should be able to sell power back to the grid at something close to wholesale price.  Being small providers they might not be entitled to full wholesale price.

We're going to be moving to a smart grid.  We're just setting up the test versions at the moment.  but "sorta-net metering" is something that the smart grid will give.  Along with being able to "rent" your BEV/PHEV batteries back to the grid for grid smoothing.

Are you saying mountain top removal is not an evil, earth destroying activity?  No conspiracy necessary, it's just the way bottomline monpoly corporatist governance operates.

Big does not equate with evil automatically, absolute power has to be mixed into the witch's brew.  Mwhahaha...hehey.

Can local renewable power coops keep the lights on without mega-monopolists?  Absolutely.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

Never before has someone been able to jump so far from one topic to another using only a faulty logic pole!

Congratulations!  ;o)

But in the third paragraph you return to the topic being discussed....

Can a local renewable power coop keep the lights on without mega-monopolists?

Sure.  At least in some locations.  But keep the lights on at reasonable prices?  Sometimes....

If you're talking about Buffalo New York, then it might work.  Just use all that good power falling off that big falls.

Of course if they had to start from scratch, where would they get the money to build?

How about some place in mid-state NY that doesn't have hydro, goes for months without decent solar, doesn't have enough harvestable wind?  

Big enough and well-regulated very big is the solution in my mind.  A somewhat free market will create an economy of scale and bring price efficiencies with competition.

Where there is no ability for the market to operate we have to regulate.

Can local renewable power coops build large wind turbines on their own?  Can they set up wind farms 500, a thousand miles away and ship in power?

Not only are monopoly corporations unecessary, but they are actually using their lobbying power to skew markets with huge subsidies and utility regulations that all but shut out  competition from renewables and conservation.

Can huge wind machines and long distance power lines be built without monopolies?  Yep, even that can be done with good old fashioned competitive capitalism, no too-big-to-fail socialist/corporate entities that beg for government bail out at the first sign of recession needed.

The full range of renewable/conservation energy options informs a different paradigm of distributed power production, instituted over 10 to 20 years it can replace the old centralized grid model.  Can it replace coal, nukes, and gas guzzling by next week?  Nope.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

When that HVDC transmission line gets built from the Great Plains to NYNY it's going to be owned (essentially) by one entity.

That entity is going to have monopolistic control over the shipment of power from point of generation to point of consumption.

You are not going to see a half dozen companies build transmission lines and then bidding against each other to see who gets the contract to carry the power while the others sit idle.

So you embrace monopoly then?  

Since the public owns the right-of-way on which these lines are run, a better plan would be to regulate the grid so that it creates a real free market in electricity.

Without reform, a change in the present state of monopoly gaming in the energy industry, why would anyone expect a different result?  Namely the very same problems we face now.  That would be insane, by definition.

Why do you hate capitalism Bob?  Hehey.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin