NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio
A national interstate system for distributing power may prove an expensive boondoggle.
Energy experts generally agree that the electrical grid in the United States needs to be upgraded if the country is to increase its use of renewable-energy sources like wind power and significantly reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. But plans to string new high-voltage lines to bring wind power from the midsection of the country to the coasts, where most of the demand is, could be expensive and unnecessary, and a distraction from more urgent needs, some experts say.
A new national grid, which has been likened to the Interstate Highway System constructed in the 1950s, has been proposed by groups such as the Center for American Progress, a Washington-based think tank, and AEP, a large utility; elements of the plans have been included in recent federal legislation. According to this vision, new high-voltage transmission lines costing billions of dollars would be built across the country, augmenting the existing patchwork of transmission lines much as the Interstate Highway System laid down high-speed roadways over an existing network of highways. But such a plan is "only a dream," says Paul Joskow, president of the Sloan Foundation and a professor of economics at MIT. "It's expensive. It's politically contentious. In the end, I think you're better off spending the money on other things."
What's needed instead are improved local and regional electricity transmission, the development of an efficient and adaptable smart grid, and the demonstration of technology such as carbon capture and sequestration, which could prove a cheaper way to reduce carbon dioxide emissions than transmitting power from North Dakota to New York City.
To be sure, new local and regional transmission lines are needed to bring wind power to market, since many wind farms are located in remote areas without the necessary connections to the grid. Indeed, last week, investor T. Boone Pickens said that he's halting his planned four-gigawatt wind farm in Texas in part because of a lack of transmission lines to carry the power from the farm to urban centers. And Steven Specker, the president and CEO of the Electric Power Research Institute, says that the lack of such transmission is the biggest obstacle to the growth of renewables.
But national transmission lines are a different story: they would face large obstacles and may not be necessary. Unlike local and regional transmission projects, where regulatory mechanisms are in place to distribute the costs of construction, it's not clear who would pay for a national grid. There could also be resistance from states between the wind farms and the coasts, which would have to give up land for the transmission lines without benefitting from the power that they carry. What's more, some politicians have moved to block such lines because wind power from North Dakota could threaten local wind power companies in places such as New England.
A superstation for connecting three independent grids could help solar and wind power.
Regulations, privacy and security concerns, and other issues could hold back developments.
Is this all about keeping coal plants alive?
Behind all the negatives towards upgrading our national grid which has been developed in a haphazard way over the last century I see an attempt to justify keeping coal fired plants alive at the expense of developing clean renewables. Carbon sequestering doesn't help our eastern ecosystem from continuing to die over acid rain. Yes we will have off shore wind farms here in Massachusetts, but a strong national grid will stabilize our supply with our demand.
The wind farm guys should hook up with this guy http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/06/22/synthetic.tree.climate.change.ccs/index.html
and put the synthetic trees at the wind farms. They would still need to invest in pipeline infrastructure to get the sequestered CO2 to its destination. Their profit would come from selling the carbon credits.
Whether or not CSS is a worthwhile pursuit seems up in the air yet. David McKay has something to say about that http://www.withouthotair.com/, it's a good read so far.
I don't know if we need, or want, a national electric grid, but we *do* have a national highway system and it does appear to provide a benefit.
This topic was already covered indirectly by one of the news outlets (maybe CNN) last week. It seems the plans for new power distribution lines line up with existing or planned coal plants. Can you say special interest interference? The more things change, the more they stay the same.
omg, why is anything govt planned enemy of efficiency? That's simply not the case. Govt can be very efficient due to economies of scale, the fact they are answering primarily to the public good and not shareholders, and can invest in the long term and not sacrifice long term efficacy for a quick buck. You have to look at the incentives and then decide whether the market's incentives ultimately align with the public's interest. That's all there is to it, there is no absolute rule.
The key to the entire debate is in the last paragraph of the article: "... no control over demand." You can mask this in all the green technology - save the earth - catastrophic climate change rhetoric you want, these are the justifications for the end requirement, control of the grid.
Government programs can be efficient, but are not because there is no incentive to be efficient. When the government is the monopolistic supplier, there is no alternate competitor to cause the government to give better "service". This holds for any government agency: Education, Post Office, military, Agriculture, etc. For all it's flaws, the free market place is far better at developing effiencies than is the government.
It took FedEx to show the US Postal Service a better way. Government run orgaizations simply exist to exist, and will do what they have to to continue to exist.
The push for the "smart grid" is not to make energy transfer more effient, it is so the overseers of the grid can control it better. Since that is going to be the government, either by direct ownership or via extensive regulation and licensing, the user will have no alternate to the costing and controls the Smart Grid will require.
Here's the underlying problem; In most cases the 'green' resources don't sit where they can be easily utilized, and this only spells one thing INVESTMENT. Or does it? The general argument is that demand response initiatives, whether they be induced or autonomous, have the potential to forge a stronger link between wholesale and retail energy sales which will finally realize a truly competitive and efficient market. The evolution of deregulation is proving that consumers are reaching for higher levels of involvement in their energy management programs, while the 'green movement' is indicating that initiatives such as FCM can fund investment in renewable energy assets. The idea of a true 'National Grid' is a compelling argument although the underlying relay and dispatching system is an investment that may not be necessary. By allowing consumers to control their energy bills the underlying costs savings may hold the potential to offset investment in transmission and generation resources. Basically...tell your politician to shove it...beef up the lines that need to be rebuilt...encourage people to monitor their bills...encourage them to monitor through rebates...and tell companies like Oracle and ones that make meters to start preparing for the retail market..out!
any mention of carbon sequestration and storage (CCS) dilutes the argument. CCS on the scale required to make a difference (more than 10 billion tonnes or one thousand cubic miles of gas every year) may be physically impossible. And all estimates of the cost of CCS (>$50 per tonne) have it more expensive than non-fossil alternatives for electricity generation (nuclear, wind, Solar, geothermal).
A new electric grid: necessary and it pays for itself
The title of this article does a good job of summing up its flawed claims and reasoning. I'll use the title to deconstruct these flaws:
1. Unnecessary? In reality, a new grid is essential, not just for bringing wind resources on, but for making the power grid more efficient and reliable, cutting into the tens of billions in annual costs faced by electric consumers due to congestion on our antiquated grid. In fact, as the first sentence of the article correctly notes "Energy experts generally agree that the electrical grid in the United States needs to be upgraded if the country is to increase its use of renewable-energy sources like wind power and significantly reduce emissions of greenhouse gases." Unfortunately the remainder of the article veers off drastically from what was a promising start.
The fundamental problem that needs to be solved is that there are massive amounts of world-class renewable resources stranded in parts of the country far from where people live. In many parts of the country with the best wind resources there is no grid at all. Making the grid "smart" will do nothing to get that wind energy online. The only thing that can solve this problem is building a grid that can move large amounts of power from where it would be generated to where it is needed. This investment is also what is needed to relieve the billions of dollars in costs faced by consumers because of congestion and unreliability on the current grid.
2. Costly? In reality, transmission costs are a fraction of total electricity costs, and the net effect of building transmission is actually to reduce overall electricity costs by reducing congestion on the grid, improving the grid's efficiency and providing consumers with access to lower cost power. The recent Joint Coordinated System Plan, an analysis by grid operators in the Eastern U.S. of what transmission investments are needed to bring large amounts of Midwest wind online, also found that we need to make a transmission investment of about $50-60 billion. What this article didn't mention was that this figure represents less than 2% of total power system costs, and that the net effect on consumers' bill would actually be to save them about $10 per month. Moreover, the costs of building transmission would not be borne by taxpayers. Private companies are jumping at the bit to build new transmission and are just waiting for the correct transmission policies to be put in place so that they can begin building new transmission.
3. The article also makes that claim that since there are policy obstacles to building transmission, we should just give up on building a new grid. It is correct that our transmission policies are outdated, particularly with regard to how we permit and allocate the costs of transmission, and that these policies are the largest obstacle to building new transmission. But the obvious solution is to fix those policies, not to give up. Should we give up on changing a policy just because it is hard to do so? America wouldn't be where it is today if we had done that on any number of other issues.
Michael Goggin, American Wind Energy Association
Re: A new electric grid: necessary and it pays for itself
President Obama admits that industry has failed in his term and the government has made a partial attempt at restoring it but honestly the Second Industrial Era he is actually referring to has died and we need to march into a New Industrial Era. To accomplish this we do need to consider other issues, My Project Plan is such a issue which provides a multitude of jobs and they're not hard jobs at all plus the likelihood for States to manage their own conversions so The Foundation is not having to tend to state matters and States can hire as many Federal Employees as they want to under their operations. Making new autos is a longer haul than just making a few components, this strengthens the auto aftermarket base of operations, more likely it would restructure so to be able to serve the needs of the consumer's that The foundation converted their vehicles. Automakers could come forth with new body designs and even refabricate older designs to meet better quality materials instead of depending on old formulas, plastics have come a long way and we would rather have a lighter weight windshield and auto windows so that is a new industry to consider entirely. I mention jobs because a simple power grid is a solution for big power corporates whom earn to much money which is unlikely to change because it would create more higher-up jobs in their career opportunities and ladder climbing. I am not skeptical. I believe in American's and their budget and I want them to be satisfied so if that is the directive we should be following then we are on the wrong track from early estimates in making new vehicles which they now are unable to afford and we need to resolve this issue immediately.
Read My Project Plan: The Electric Vehicle Free Conversion Foundation (EVFCF)
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grid planning should take efficiency into account
In 2005 the 40 least-efficient states used 13,947 kWh per capita, compared to 8,201 for Japan, 7,804 for Korea, 7,774 for the 10 most-efficient states, 7,699 for France, and 7,114 for Germany. California was the most efficient state, using only 7,032. Both California and the rest of the US used around 7,000 kWh per capita in the 1970s; the difference is that California (and the other 9 efficient states) implemented efficiency policies that kept usage flat while much of the rest of the nation bloated (New York, New Hampshire and Massachusetts are in the 10 most-efficient group, so no it is not the weather).
If we were to implement California's energy efficiency policies, incentives, and regulations at the Federal level, the least efficient 40 states would slowly reduce their usage from 13,947 kWh per capita down toward 7,800. The savings is huge. We would be closing power plants instead of building them. The existing grid would have a lot less load as a result. Even adding in additional load for increased population and electric cars, a spreadsheet model suggests consumption could drop from around 3800 TWh/yr today to around 3450 TWh/yr in 2023-24, and would not climb back above today's 3800 TWh/yr until 2035.
The cost of efficiency measures is often negative (i.e. they save more money than they cost). Even the ones that cost 2-3 cents per kWh are worth doing, as they are one fourth to one eighth the price of new power generation. Choosing between 2-3 cents and 8-16 cents per kWh really should be a no-brainer.
I do not see any energy experts guiding Obama. I might say the same about the technology editors of this website cause there are so many worthless exceptions given a poster that supposedly helps someone decide their character by their postings totals and the like of ratings per comment, totally not needed. Aside from the enjoyment of the Internet I also watch televison and listen to the radio, on none of those media flips have I ever seen nor heard of a "ELECTRIC VEHICLE FREE CONVERSION FOUNDATION" or the working of it like "MANUFACTURING PLANTS" which are more defined as a "FABRICATION COMPONENT CENTER" and or the multitudes of "CONSUMER VEHICLE CONVERSION FACILITIES". Knowingly taxpayers are not paying for this expansion Project Plan I have devised, nor has the U.S. Government given me a bid nor offer to continue or otherwise fullfill a promise in completing, I am the author so I feel I should know what the world is up to because it certainly has no directive that would make My Project Plan happen in such the way I have written it. In otherwords, I find technicians wishing to merely put in a work day and then bailout of knowledge until the next workday and maybe that is where our nation fails to meet its goals in particular to taxpayers that would pay a tax schedule on a yearly basis and spend spend spend for the remaining of the year to do it again and again each tax year, Obama is one of those whom would find that the last year in office would be a tax year that runs over to the next tax year and he would be doing his tax at home in Illinois if all goes as planned for his popularity to suffer only that much.
Next I would recognize where science meets the road, sure there are microwave power devices that can literally send and receive high voltages through tubes, isn't that the oldest pipe dream? What's really up with a New Power Grid is the many ways and means it will become fruitful, the counter espionage forces working in America do not want to see this happen (they got big ships to load and unload dealerships that need to be fulfilled), I could say the same about some authors since they do not know why it should happen fruitfully. But to be honest why would it happen to simple leave out consumers, it is a big business program that is being pushed as if it were for consumer's and that it is not. The Interstate Highway System it would support would be from one side of America to the other and sincerely said where is the alternate Interstate Highway System, the one that pre-exists? Actually in My Project Plan I call for Four Manufacturing Plants constructed within Four Regional Areas where North of and South of The Interstate Highway System is a dividing line, this plan would create power to sell into that Power Grid and make the operation less expensive. This Plan does not ask for much it has a systematic and fundamental way to work its assets and deploy the capital so theres no need of monthly payments. How could there be anything better than not requiring a bank to own a automobile or a truck for consumer's? Its not a capitalistic approach to commercializing vehicles so that there is a brand name opportunity for anyone that wants to make a new vehicle, it does not make new vehicles and rests on what consumer's already have in their possession and this is no Highway To Heaven by no means for a Stock Market to center its objectives on and declare that it can control the ups and downs cause there will be no marketing cash flow between The Foundation and Consumer's nor between tha Manufacturing and the Conversion Facilities. Furthermore this is not a dream machine opportunity for taxi cab services to decide they can use their vehicles and get a better deal this way for business, it will not work that way for a consumer either because a conaumer is the only legal representative of their vehicle and no one can be assigned by them without The Foundation's acceptance and guidance - they must also pay the yearly warranty cost for that converted vehicle if they want to control that vehicle. Understand, NO CASH FLOW, NO MARKET, NO PAYMENTS, NO CASH REGISTERS, NO WELLS FARGO OR BRINKS DELIVERING MONEY EVERY DAY. How this is accomplished is employing a yearly warranty issue much like a license tag is for what we have as alternative vehicles right now but they have liens and monthly payments and so that must not be the case if a consumer wants to convert their vehicle. A Warranty is a guarantee we would agree to serve all replacement parts and test the vehicle each year, this in turns generates a flow chart of the items manufactured so if there were a reason to decide to replace some item it would affect everyone's vehicle not just a single consumer's vehicle.
I invite you to go to My website and read all about My Project Plan and then you decide if you want those Chevrolet Volts or whatever new electric vehicle is being manufactured or would you rather own your own vehicle (NO BILLINGS ATTACHED) that has been converted and it be safeguarded from theft and or any fraud that could occur down the road to successful auto/truck ownership. If you agree with me then you should tell Obama his days of neglecting consumer's is nearer the end. We will not be pirated by big automakers anymore, consumer's united will always stand up for America and be counted when they know the truth. You wanted a Plan, I wrote it for you and now its up to you to make it clear to Congress that you want it now with no strings attached. I will be hoping for you cause there are 291 million vehicles owned by consumer's and that is a lot of new cars that would have to be made to replace all those if you want to look at it that way or its less components to make to convert your vehicle which is easier and faster and believe me we have to hurry to get this operation for consumer's right now because we cannot wait 30 years fromm now when the vehicle count will be a 100 more million to have to convert.
The Electric Vehicle Free Conversion Foundation (EVFCF)
New US Power Grid and High Speed Transportation
Regardless of sources a new US power grid will be needed to carry all the additional electricity being added or planned from many re-newable sources. This new grid should be layed between the existing lanes of our Interstate Highway System. This solves the need for right of way and the highways connect the population centers to each other. Secondly, the electricity will be readily available to power a future "High Speed" transpotation system. Electric motors are stronger and faster than combustion engines and would serve us well on a new electrified Interstate Highway System. Imagine cars and freight moving at speed of 300 mph on an automated system? We have the technology now to do such a project and imagine the JOBS!!! Also imaigine the exporting of such technology if we act first???
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erbium
340 Comments
Anything planned by the govt
is not necessarily the right thing. Central planning has proven to be the enemy of efficiency, reasons even communist countries are tending to market driven economies.
What if they convert the electrical energy to chemical near the source? They'd have no problem building lines a hundred miles or so to central area in the wind farms.
At that point a plant would convert to chemical.
Hydrogen is one obvious idea, electrolyzing water. And recent advances are bumping up efficiency.
However there are other less obvious but perhaps better options: using a carbon source plus the hydrogen liberated, convert to methanol, ethanol or other carbon compounds. This could be fuel, gasoline, diesel using various catalysts, or even non-fuels such as bulk carbon compounds.
They might even use carbon output from nearby fossil fuels plant to recycle the carbon or take the carbon out of air by liquefaction or chemical means (chemical means have been proposed separately as atmospheric scrubbers).
Pipelines for liquid carbon fuels are less contentious and already weave thousands of miles across the country. And probably safer and more efficient than trying to pipe gaseous hydrogen.
One final option might be to use the excess electricity nearby to the source to reform aluminum oxide or magnesium oxide into their base metals. These, as I've previously mentioned in other posts, can liberate hydrogen on demand in car gas tanks, fueling cars by hydrogen while only storing aluminum and water, even safer than today's cars.
Aluminum + water -> aluminum oxide plus hydrogen at room temps if certain elements are added to prevent aluminum's surface layer.
Magnesium reacts with water at elevated temps similar to today's car engines to give off hydrogen also.
These metal pellets could be trucked or piped as slurry in pipelines. coal is today piped as slurry in various pipelines around the world.
Even room temp superconductors in an electric transmission line might not work or be accepted, or cost billions as the article mentions, so we may have to think up other options.
Maybe someone else has ideas?
Reply
GruenSein
5 Comments
Re: Anything planned by the govt
While I think exploring other options is absolutely necessary, I doubt a chemical based approach on energy distribution will turn out to be the best.
One reason is the fact, that there are pretty efficient HVDC-Lines already. Those are not even fancy in terms of superconducting. Those lines can get 85% over 1000 km of distance today. (See "desertec", the European, very ambitious and risky concept for sustainable solar energy generated in the African desert.). Compared to this, hydrogen generation through electrolysis is (as of today) far less efficient. Mind you, this is only the first step. The hydrogen has to be converted back into electricity once it reaches the destined urban area, which bumps off another couple percent of your overall efficiency.
Another problem might be the fact, that hydrogen or whatever chemical is used to store energy is produced from base components (water in this example). Given the huge amounts of energy generated by planned wind farms, there is most like the need to build a second pipeline to supply those base components. Energy is needed for transportation and obviously, the second pipeline costs money as well.
There is one big advantage to your proposal though.Once hydrogen has been generated, it can be stored to ease the demand at peak times. Safety is a concern in this context (and for the pipeline as well) though.
I am not sure, what the best approach to the energy distribution problem is. I am excited to see, how it will be solved in the future.
Reply
robert.hargraves
39 Comments
Re: Anything planned by the govt
Actually $3 million/mile is less than I would have guessed.
Patchwork is not necessarily a bad word. As power transmission links are needed, new ones are built. You could almost argue it's the optimal solution.
I would think the difficulties of funding, regulation, cost recovery, regulation, etc would be analogous to those in the pipelines, where you pay to reserve capacity and also pay for transportation.
There's talk of expanding pipelines for newly discovered domestic natural gas. Is it cheaper to use natural gas to generate electricity and transmit the power, or transport the natural gas and generate the power near point of use?
Eliminating competition between Midwest wind farms and New England wind farms should be anathema. The whole concept of deregulation is to encourage competition to keep prices in check.
Smart grid proponents imply that today information about power, voltage, frequency, phase slip, reactivity, etc are not measured, monitored, or used for control. Of course it is!
I am an advocate of distributed small nuclear power generators, with today's attributes of safety, carbon-free energy, low power cost, low waste, and inexhaustible fuel supply. To learn more about the liquid fluoride thorium reactor please visit http://rethinkingnuclearpower.googlepages.com/aimhigh.
Reply
mkogrady
423 Comments
Re: Anything planned by the govt
Perhaps a decentralization of electric power may be better suited to the consumers and taxpayers. The governement could drive new power systems by acting as a major buyer of Solar and mass power storage and use their leverage to order millions of solar panels and flow cell batteries sized for home use ( example 8kva systems with 12 hour power reserve storage). The critical mass needed to make this more cost effective can only be generated by the government being a major purchaser.
As for Grid upgrades, they would be smaller due to the decentalization aspect. The costs ($60 Billion) should be a heck of a lot less.
Reply
DarkRobot
1 Comment
Re: Anything planned by the govt
It's about the cost of 6-10 nuclear plants, but provides much greater grid redundancy than just a regional grid approach or local microgeneration. Unless, of course, there are some dramatic breakthroughs in microgeneration or efficiency technologies.
Reply
tulcak
3 Comments
Re: Anything planned by the govt
A costly but necessary New Electricity Grid: To use solar and wind power, decentralization of our existing grid is necessary. Right now, we use large coal powered plants for the most part to generate electricity to send over our existing grid. To send electricity produced by solar and wind technologies we must rebuild our grid to allow for a de-centralized method of providing electricity. To imply that our existing grid is adequate is to embrace the status quo of continuing to use the burning of fossil fuels as our primary source of electricity. This is not sustainable because we will either eventually run out of fossil fuels or the effects of global warming will be strengthened to the point that civilization as we know it will end.
Reply
tulcak
3 Comments
Re: Anything planned by the govt
and by the way, central planning has proven to be highly successful... that is why so many organizations and nations have done it throughout history. I sense that you have a certain political slant or ideology that pre-conceives your argument.
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