A reminder as we come up on Earth Day:
Climate scientist Michael E Mann & historian Timothy D Snyder define doomerism:
Doomerism is how we fail to fight for ourselves & one another.
It is how authoritarians win. Let’s try to fight the doom.
I’m going to start this post out with a caveat, while I’ve been a long time proponent of examining the United States electric grid and revamping it – everything about electricity traveling over long distances is way above my limited technical knowledge.
I have pulled together some experts I trust and am sharing their opinions on what needs to happen to the grid in order for alternative energy sources to be viable, and to meet the 2030 and 2050 climate goals.
From Dave Roberts’ Volts Podcast:
Getting More Out of Current Transmission Infrastructer
One of the primary threats to the clean energy buildout spurred by the Inflation Reduction Act is a lack of transmission. Models show that hitting our Paris climate targets would involve building two to three times our current transmission capacity, yet new lines are desperately slow to come online. Meanwhile, existing lines are congested and hundreds of gigawatts of new clean energy sits waiting in interconnection queues.
Wouldn’t it be cool if there were some relatively cheap and speedy ways to get more capacity out of the transmission infrastructure we’ve already built? To ease some of that congestion and get more clean energy online while we wait for new lines to be completed?
As it happens, there are. They are called grid-enhancing technologies, or GETs, and they can improve the performance of existing transmission lines by as much as 40 percent. Full transcript here
Another from David (he has several you can search for more on his website):
Upgrading Current Powerlines
Utilities are not under constant pressure to improve their products, and consequently, power lines haven’t improved much over the years. The standard design used in the industry dates back to the early 1900s. The more “modern” design dates back to the 1970s.
Now, at long last, some companies are popping up with new power lines that can transmit more power, and leak less of it, than traditional lines. Simply replacing old lines (or “conductors”) with the latest technology — or “reconductoring” — could, according to some recent studies, double the capacity of the existing grid, or more. But that would involve persuading utilities to actually deploy the latest tech, which is no mean feat. Full transcript here
Climate Solutions: Upgrading the Energy GridPost + Comments (72)