The Christian Science Monitor
Thursday 04 September 2007
Designated as part of a national power "corridor" Tuesday, Virginia could see transmission towers near Civil War sites.
Huge transmission lines could soon skirt Civil War battlegrounds, historic districts, and the Appalachian Trail following a federal order that designates national corridors in two key regions of the United States with fast-growing electricity needs.
The corridors are designed to make it easier for utilities to get approval for power lines in areas where the electric grid is congested. They allow the US Energy Department - not states - to be the final arbiter of where the lines are built.
Tuesday's move is certain to spark a fresh round of lawsuits and inject vigor into congressional debates about new energy legislation, critics say, especially over provisions for the new eastern corridor. At stake is the reliability and cost of electric power in the Northeast, its embrace of green energy, and the ambience of hundreds of thousands of rural acres from New York to Virginia.
Arguing that the US badly needs new transmission lines to prevent future power shortages and possibly even blackouts, federal energy officials say newly designated "national interest electric corridors" in the Mid-Atlantic states and the Southwest are a much needed insurance policy.
"These National Corridors serve as an important indication by the federal government that significant transmission [power] constraint or congestion problems exist," Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said in a statement. "The goal is simple - to keep reliable supplies of electric energy flowing to all Americans."
But opponents, including the governors of New York and Virginia, state regulators, and others, say it's anything but simple. The newly designated corridors hold potential to push power lines through some of the most scenic and historic areas of 11 states. They would also undermine Northeast states' bid to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by causing them to rely more on cheaper coal-fired power from the Midwest, rather than cleaner but higher cost electric generators fired by natural gas.
"I am deeply disappointed in the department's decision to go forward with this designation," says Rep. Frank Wolf (R) of Virginia. "It makes no sense and has the potential to destroy neighborhoods and desecrate huge swaths of historically significant land."
Under provisions of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is allowed to preempt local and state zoning laws when it designates a "national interest electric transmission corridor." It also permits the use of federal powers of eminent domain that would require landowners to sell their property.
As reported by the Monitor in May, at least eight power lines stretching 2,000 miles through six eastern states at an estimated cost of more than $9 billion are under active consideration or have been formally proposed by power companies. But those plans, which make it possible to bring power from the Ohio Valley to the East Coast, face increasing opposition.
Indeed, the new corridors are not needed to boost reliability, say state officials and some grid-reliability experts. They say the corridors are aimed mainly at making it possible for large, deregulated utilities to profit from transmitting cheap coal-fired power from the Ohio Valley to the East Coast.
What raises suspicions for some is the sweeping scope of the corridor along the Eastern Seaboard. Transmission planners and engineers say upgrades to existing lines could address reliability without a need for most new lines. The two new corridors are not exactly narrow pathways for power lines, but encompass wide swaths of 11 states. The new Mid-Atlantic power corridor, for instance, encompasses 116,000 square miles.
"The FERC cited the Hudson Valley in New York as a bottleneck for power - but that's wrong," says George Loehr, a power engineer and executive committee member of the New York State Reliability Council. "It's just that independent generating companies in upstate New York would like to be able to move more power to New York City and Long Island. That's the highest priced market and would earn them more money there. But that's not a reliability issue."
But Dominion Resources, which has proposed a 65-mile power line through the Virginia countryside narrowly skirting battlefields, has said it expects state regulators to make a positive decision on its recent application. If the company doesn't like the decision, it may now apply to FERC for review of its power-line proposal.
Some of the most heated resistance is in Virginia where the new national corridor includes 11 historic districts, one national historic landmark, 19 state or national historic sites, seven Civil War battlefields, and the Appalachian Trail. Some of the most famous sites of the Civil War - Manassas, Antietem, and Gettysburg - lie within the Mid-Atlantic corridor.
Mark Brownstein, a managing director at Environmental Defense, a New York-based environmental group, says his group is examining the possibility of a lawsuit. The new corridor border divides Appalachian coal reserves and large urban populations on the East Coast. "It seems no accident these corridors are exactly along the borders of states that have committed to reducing greenhouse gases," he says.
Nevada Senator Calls For National Renewable Energy Zones
Renewable Energy Access.com
Friday 28 September 2007
New legislation urges US to invest in new transmission lines to bring renewable energy to the grid.
Washington, DC - U.S. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada is calling on President Bush to provide additional financing options for the building of new power lines and interconnections to enable the transmission of renewable energy from remote areas of the country to those with growing electricity demand.
This approach, which has been pioneered in Texas under the name Competitive Renewable Energy Zone, would solve the "chicken-or-the-egg" transmission dilemma: renewable energy developers are reluctant to build projects in areas that have renewable resources but lack transmission, while transmission developers do not want to build lines to such areas without any generation facilities present.
The Clean Renewable Energy and Economic Development Act, which Reid introduced last week, would direct the President of the United States to identify areas of the country, especially rural areas, where renewable energy resources could generate at least 1,000 MW of electricity.
"I recently came out in opposition to the proposed coal power plants," said Reid. "But I want to do more than just voice my opinion. I want to be part of the solution ... This legislation puts to rest the false assumption that the only way to finance transmission lines is through building dirty coal power plants."
Under the legislation, the Federal power marketing administrations, like the Western Area Power Administration (WAPA), would have a year to identify the types of high-voltage or interconnection lines needed to access the renewable power in those zones.
If, after two years, no private entities step forward to fund the construction of transmission lines to the renewable energy zones, then WAPA and the four other Federal power administrations (Bonneville, Southeastern, Southwestern, and Tennessee Valley Authority), would each be granted an additional $10 billion in bonding authority to finance those lines.
According to Senator Reid's office, this is particularly important for WAPA, which does not now have sufficient authority to finance transmission.
This approach, which has been pioneered in Texas under the name Competitive Renewable Energy Zone, would solve the "chicken-or-the-egg" transmission dilemma: renewable energy developers are reluctant to build projects in areas that have renewable resources but lack transmission, while transmission developers do not want to build lines to such areas without any generation facilities present.
"Our nation's citizens overwhelmingly support increasing the generation of electricity from renewable sources like wind, biomass and solar power," said Randall Swisher, Executive Director of the American Wind Energy Association. "National Renewable Energy Zones would tap America's world-class renewable resources that currently are not being used due to transmission constraints and the lack of a cohesive national approach to accessing them."
Reid's legislation would also require the power administrations to start integrating renewable energy and energy efficiency into all of their programs, including finding ways to reduce petroleum consumption through electricifying the transportation sector using renewable power and encouraging more distributed generation.
The estimated cost of building connecting the northern and southern grids is about $600 million. That is roughly the cost that ratepayers will pay for importing coal for just two years at the proposed coal plants. Those plants will burn at least $12-20 billion worth of coal and ratepayers money over their 40-year lifespan, though most coal plants last much longer.
Experts estimate that there are at least an estimated additional 1,300 MW of baseload geothermal electricity generation in the northern part of Nevada that could be brought online within the next 5-6 years with sufficient investment and thereby help finance the interconnection of the Sierra Pacific Power and Nevada Power grids.
Reid's bill limits the Federal financing of high-voltage transmission lines to only those that carry at least 75 percent renewable electricity, and applies the same limitation to any new lines to be built across Federal lands.
"The proposed legislation includes provisions to use the existing transmission system more efficiently and to use the federal Power Marketing Administrations, which are well positioned to advance the national objective of developing renewable energy, given their capabilities and geographic locations," added Reid.
-------
No comments:
Post a Comment