WIRING AMERICA FOR GREEN POWER

The wind howling over the Great Plains and the unrelenting Southwestern sun pack enough energy to power the entire U.S. with clean, renewable electricity. Trouble is, there's no way to get that power to America's big cities, especially those on the East Coast. As much as 300,000 megawatts of green power, enough to replace more than 300 coal-fired power plants, is being held on the shelf, as it were, because of the lack of transmission lines. This has sparked a movement to create "green power superhighways"--the electrical equivalent of the Interstate highway system. "A high-voltage transmission system will cost a tiny fraction of the money we spent on the highways and do a ton more good," argues Joseph L. Welch, CEO of ITC Holdings, a Novi (Mich.) transmission line developer.

The idea has powerful support in Washington. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) sees an expanded power line system as key not only to tackling global warming but also to creating jobs in Nevada. Now, as the Senate begins deliberation on its climate bill, advocates are pushing to include a national transmission effort, paid for with increases in almost everyone's electric bills.

But is subsidized transmission really a good idea? Ralph Izzo, CEO of Newark (N.J.) utility PSEG, argues that such a system would undermine the development of renewable power. His company is putting solar panels on rooftops and laying plans for wind turbines off the New Jersey coast. Those projects would make less economic sense if cheaper wind energy from the Dakotas came rushing into the Northeast on the new power lines. Creating a transmission system that's largely free to users, on the model of Interstate highways, "unfairly biases against the construction of renewables in parts of the country closest to the load," Izzo says.

Worse, say Eastern utility executives like Izzo as well as many environmentalists, many of the power lines built to transport wind energy are destined to travel through coal regions, where any available cheap coal electricity would hop aboard. That would bring unwelcome competition to East Coast utilities--and increase carbon emissions. "There's a very high risk that new transmission development, however well-intentioned, will simply facilitate more of the same old conventional stuff," cautions Environmental Defense Fund analyst Mark Brownstein.

BILLIONS IN UPGRADES

At one level, this debate pits wind developers in the West, who need the transmission lines, against such companies as Deepwater Wind in Hoboken, N.J., which is eyeing offshore wind on the East Coast. "I don't want federal tax dollars paying to export jobs to the West," says Deepwater Managing Director Jim Lanard. From a higher vantage, there's a split over the fundamental vision for America's electricity industry. Is it better to emphasize huge wind farms and solar power plants in remote regions? Or should investment first be directed toward boosting energy efficiency, thus cutting the need for power, and toward smaller-scale electricity generation with rooftop solar panels, offshore wind turbines, and other close-to-home efforts?

Whichever side one favors, the status quo is not defensible. "Everyone pretty much agrees that the current transmission system is not built to do this job," says Jon Wellinghoff, chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. It's antiquated and inefficient, with 9% of all power generated getting lost in transmission. Billions of dollars of upgrades must be made.

The central question is who picks up the tab for new wires. At one extreme are those who argue that since everyone ultimately will benefit, all electricity users should pay a little extra in their bills, just as everyone pays gas taxes to support highways. Those who oppose such broad subsidies, such as the State of Massachusetts and Northeastern utilities, are looking out for parochial interests, argues Rob Gramlich, senior vice-president for public policy at the American Wind Energy Assn., which is pushing the green superhighway idea. The Eastern states are trying to keep renewable jobs at home, even though homegrown clean energy costs more, he says.

Not exactly, retorts PSEG's Izzo. He wants wind developers in the Great Plains to pay for connecting to the grid, instead of getting a free ride. That "is our economic self-interest," he says, "but it is also aligned with the best interests of the country." Why? Because increasing the costs of renewable developments in the West would create a more level playing field for clean power.

Sierra Club transmission expert Carl Zichella believes careful planning could solve the conundrum. Start by making better use of the existing grid and promoting small-scale renewable generation, he says. Then build whatever new power lines the nation needs the most. Zichella is working on proposals that would sort out competing interests on a regional basis. "It's one of the most important things I have ever worked on," he says.

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Green Superhighways?

Not a good idea, unless your goal is to undercut local efforts, says author John Farrell in an Oct. 19 post to the Grist Web site called "A Little Heresy on Transmission." The counterargument appears in a detailed white paper titled "Green Power Superhighways" on the Web site of the American Wind Energy Assn. Such pipes are the only way to tap the vast wind and solar energy in remote regions, it says.

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