Over the weekend The New York Times’ Matthew L. Wald had a sobering story on the not-inconsiderable challenges facing efforts to expand and upgrade the United States’ power grid to tap renewable energy from wind farms and solar power plants. Among them: Opposition to new high-voltage power lines from landowners and environmentalists, a Byzantine permitting process and fights over who pays the costs of transmission projects that span state lines.
Here in California, the ongoing controversy over the Sunrise Powerlink project is a case study in just how difficult it will be to build the infrastructure to transmit electricity from dozens of solar power plants planned for the Mojave Desert. Among the big companies looking to cash in on the solar land rush: Goldman Sachs (GS), Chevron (CVX) and FPL (FPL)
Utility San Diego Gas & Electric first proposed the $1.3 billion, 150-mile Sunrise Powerlink in 2005 to connect the coastal metropolis with remote solar power stations and wind farms in eastern San Diego County and the Imperial Valley. For instance, SDG&E’s contract to buy up to 900 megawatts of solar electricity from massive solar farms to be built by Stirling Energy Systems is dependent on the construction of the Sunrise Powerlink. Like California’s other big investor-owned utilities – PG&E (PCG) and Southern California Edison (EIX) – SDG&E, a unit of energy giant Sempra (SRE), is racing the clock to meet a state mandate to obtain 20% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2010 and 33% by 2020.
But Sunrise sparked opposition from the get-go as the utility proposed routing part of the transmission project through a pristine wilderness area of the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. The prospect of 150-foot-tall transmission towers marching through critical habitat for desert tortoises and other protected wildlife galvanized environmentalists well-versed in the arcane arts of regulatory warfare.
Opponents also painted the project as a Trojan horse to bring in cheap coal-fired power from Mexico. (Wald makes a similar point in his Times‘ piece – the same high-voltage lines designed to transmit green electricity from wind farms can also be used to send cheap carbon-intensive coal-fired electricity across the country.) That argument subsequently lost currency when regulators, citing California’s landmark global warming law, barred utilities from signing long-term contracts for out-of-state coal power.
After more than three years of hearings and procedural skirmishes culminating in an 11,000-page environmental impact report, a PUC administrative law judge last October issued a 265-page decision all but killing the project on environmental grounds. Whether SDG&E thought that green energy and climate change concerns would trump worries over wildlife and wilderness, it was clear that trying to build an industrial project through a state park was a costly mistake.
Then in December, after California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed an executive order to streamline and prioritize the licensing of renewable energy projects, the utilities commission’s board revived Sunrise Powerlink, approving a different route for the transmission lines that avoids Anza-Borrego.
But the fight is far from over. With the cost of the project now approaching $2 billion, late last month the Center for Biological Diversity, a Tucson, Ariz.-based environmental group, filed a suit in the California Supreme Court challenging the utilties commission’s approval of Sunrise Powerlink.
Safe to say, the battle will drag on for some time to come, giving new meaning to the term “stranded assets” for some would-be Big Solar developers.
While the environmentalist desires are important ans we would all prefer “Not In My Back Yard” as a society we need to come to grips with we can not have it all. If we want to free ourselves of being dependent on oil and slowing global warming we will have to except somethings we would rather not. here in New England we are facing similar issues with opostion to wind farms in the sounds to terminals for LNG tankers. Yes air the concerns, make sure they are truly thougth out, etc. But offer alternatives to just say no helps no one. We need to except compromise all around. Divisive pettiness is now the norm in both private life and in the way government operates (look at the current argument on stimulus). All we care about is our own selfish needs. No wonder nothing ever get accomplished. We need to think of the common good for a change, bring this all about me period to a close and be done with it, that started in the 1980’s. End the selfish behavior on both sides. We need to cooperate for all our good.
For all the environmentalists and land owners who reject the power lines they should not be allowed electricity, then see how they like it.
Bringing renewable energy assets online will NOT appreciably reduce our dependence on foreign oil.
Imported oil contributes very little to our production of electricity. Coal, natural gas and nuclear are by far the predominate sources for electricity generation.
No matter how much solar, biomass, hydro or wind are brought onto the electric grid, we will not greatly reduce the amount of oil we use.
If you want to reduce dependence on foreign oil – prohibit gasoline-powered cars.
hey ray, its easy to say prohibit gasoline powered cars. the problem is no one will do anything about it.our country is getting kicked in the crotch right now because we wont do anything about our dependence on foriegn oil. There are many aspects to this recession, but 4 dollar gas and 5 dollar diesel sure didnt help. using natural gas for trucks, electric cars charged by wind turbines, geothermal heating and cooling……. we have the options….its time we broke free.
“The prospect of 150-foot-tall transmission towers marching through critical habitat for desert tortoises and other protected wildlife galvanized environmentalists…”
This is a laughable argument at best by those who make the argument; it becomes nonsensical that there are governmental regulations that even permit this type of argument to be made, let alone to be considered valid. The measure of what should be considered is that a child could understand the reasoning behind argument. Sometimes being “green” appears idiotic.
$10 million per mile for a transmission line? In the desert? On public land? Why does this cost so much? In the mountains, sure, but c’mon. This has to be a racket.
To Ray in Tampa:
TECO ( Tampa Electric ) generates power from oil ( the Sebring station ) and coal.
RE Where does electricty come from? (2007 EIA Annual Energy Review)
49% Coal
21% Natural Gas
19% Nuclear
6% Hydroelectric
5% Other (including Petroleum, Wind, Wood and more)
Where does all the petroleum go?
68.9% Transportation (cars, trucks, jets, etc.)
24.5% Industrial
3.7% Residential
1.5% Commercial
1.4% Electric Power
Bottom Line: Increasing our renewable capacity will not directly reduce much petroleum use: it only works if we also transition to transportation technologies that USE that capacity.
To Ray-
If gasoline powered vehicles were banned in the US, what type of power would they run on? If electric cars are what you are suggesting we use, where is the power going to come from to power those vehicles? The point is, we have to have the electrical infrastructure in place before we start plugging millions of vehicles in to charge. So, basically, yes renewable power supply is needed first to reduce our dependency on foreign oil.
Instead of public projects that line the pockets of big utilities (and power traders), we should consider distributed generation. If a national net metering law gets enacted there is every reason to think that solar panels could be put on every south facing or flat roof south of the 35th parallel. Of course, the utilities won’t like having to buy electricity from residences, but hey! Let’s think outside the box.
Also, green electricity is not about foreign oil as much as it is about reducing greenhouse gasses.
Why not mandate in every major city in the US with large office and/or commercial buildings that have relatively flat roof tops install solar panel systems to relieve the grid stress.
Some people in California are trying very hard to prevent the construction of any new power transmission lines, as they have done for the past two decades or longer.
These same people also prevent the construction of new power plants in California, esp. nuclear power plants.
Fearless Prediction: One day it’ll all come to the point that California can not maintain enough jobs to support its population [Intel as already moved all of its chip plants to other states or countries].
Who knows, maybe the current CA budget “crisis” is an early notification of this.
Sometime after that, the remaining people in CA will approach the rest of America, hat in hand, asking us to subsidize their preferred (“green”) lifestyle because they can’t afford it themselves.
Btw, I’ll vote NO on that.
John,
The “electrical infrastructure” exists today. As an example, consider the recently released (pre-)specs for the Chevy Volt. It has a 16kWh battery that will go 40 miles on battery change alone. If the national average driven miles/year is ~12,000, that is 300 battery charges, or 4800kWh per vehicle per year.
Let’s pretend there were suddenly a million of these on the roads. That would be 4.8 Billion kWh per year. That’s a lot, but it is still only ~0.1% of electricy consumed. Even assuming that the Volt and similar vehicles are twice as inefficient as claimed, the overall impact is still fairly small.
Are emissions really the point> Transportation accounts for ~1/3 of total C02 emissions, but Electric Power Generation accounts for almost 40%! There is still no such thing a free lunch (Free breakfast at Denny’s though!).
I know its expensive, but can under-grounding these wires be considered? It is done throughout Europe.
I do agree that we need to expedite this process, and BANANA-ism (build absolutely nothing near anywhere) has gotten out of control. This is why sometimes we need federal mandates and leadership to get these things done.
To Dan in Charleston,
I don’t know where the $10 million per mile came from, the cost in Texas was $2-$3 million per mile range. The cost is based mainly on the price of steel and copper, steel and copper, steel and copper….
To Joe M.
Probably more damage done to the environment by digging and planting the transmission lines underground than running them overhead. Besides it will be harder to monitor the integrity of those underground lines…
Will in VA,
If you take the average gasoline usage per day and convert it to total electricity it would take to replace it, is not as small as you make it seem. The total amount is about 60,000 MW per hour to recharge all the vehicles if electricity replaced all gasoline engines. That’s 60 one thousand MW new power plants running 24/7, 365 days per year…
Ray,
Assuming your numbers are correct, I believe that the ~526 billion kWh per year you are suggesting is very roughly 1/4 of 2007 total capacity: I agree that would be a significant event all at once.
However, one of the limiting factors is current electrical storage technology. All of the early electric vehicles are finding that a lot of attention must be paid to weight and wind-resistence to deliver a driving range that is acceptable to consumers.
At least a couple of paths are conceivable: (A) battery technologies will advance so far that energy-density will approach that of petroleum products, and your scenario will come to pass; (B) end-use efficiency will go up to acheive an acceptable range and total energy will not need to be replaced. I personally hope that (B) will outweigh (A).
By the way, my back-of-the-envelope calcuation for total energy replacement would require about 5 trillion kWh per year (which makes the rather unlikely assumption that gasoline vehicles and electric vehicles get the same miles/energy). I hope your number is more correct than mine.