Battle brewing over clean-energy delivery grids
Published March 16, 2009 @ 08:10AM PT
In a story from the San Francisco Chronicle....from March 15, 2009
San Francisco Chronicle
Zachary Coile writes about some of the critical elements of the smart grid. He also writes about the problems. He writes:
"President Obama's vision of a clean energy future of wind farms and solar plants comes with a catch: It will require thousands of miles of new high-voltage power lines to move the energy from where it's most abundant, in the California desert or the plains of the Midwest, to power-hungry urban centers.
Obama's allies in Congress, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., are pushing legislation that would give federal officials new authority to site those lines if states don't act quickly enough to expand the grid."
Coile claims that state regulators have concerns about the plan and he writes that, "The (smart grid) proposal is dividing environmentalists, who are torn between the need to connect to cleaner energy sources and fears the projects could endanger sensitive species."
The article also says that Majority Leader Harry Reid said he hopes to bring his transmission plan to the Senate floor this summer as part of a massive energy and climate package that would also include a requirement that states boost their use of renewable energy as well as cap-and-trade legislation to limit greenhouse gas.
Click here to read the <a href="">entire story.
E-mail Zachary Coile at zcoile@sfchronicle.com.
The article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
Comments
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Liz Rose
- Washington, DC
we should know this by now; or at least ask ourselves WHY we don't!
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Posted by Daniel Walker on 03/16/2009 @ 09:17AM PT
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There was an interesting article in New Scientist this week on how High Voltage Direct Current lines could deliver all the power Europe needs from Africa, for slightly more than the cost of their current fossil fuel program.
We could do the same thing here. We're going to have to make choices somewhere, folks. That doesn't mean we shouldn't make responsible choices, but it does mean that sitting on our hands and being the party of "no" won't cut it any more. Use the existing byways and roads, if we must, but we need to get that power from where it is to where it's needed.
Posted by Scott Baker on 03/17/2009 @ 02:18PM PT
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Now that GM is gonna disolve, Obama has the opportunity to change America drastically. Because of supercompanies, like GM, we haven't been able to decrease our need for foriegn fuels. We now have the opportunity to take advantage of other ideas, such as the magnetic trains... that can travel 300mph and reduce the need for airplanes (which are ALWAYS on the edge of bankruptcy anyways) and are cleaner for our environment.
Posted by Melissa R on 04/10/2009 @ 08:54AM PT
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"Coile claims that state regulators have concerns about the plan and he writes that, "The (smart grid) proposal is dividing environmentalists, who are torn between the need to connect to cleaner energy sources and fears the projects could endanger sensitive species."
If we don't do this we might be one of the species lost!
Posted by Christina Campbell on 06/07/2009 @ 09:22PM PT
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