The Electricity Grid is stupid

The grid needs an update

Steve Coll (president of New America Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy institute; and a staff
writer at The New Yorker magazine, reports on issues of intelligence and national security), March 13, 2009, "The
Next Energy Economy," The New Yorker, http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/stevecoll/2009/03/the-next-
energy.html

There is, however, one area in this realm where direct federal action is critically important. This involves building
out and securing the reliability of a national electricity grid suitable for a large-scale ramp-up of renewable sources.
This is a book-length subject with many nuances but one of its most important conceptual aspects is fairly easy to
describe. By an accident of history, utilities, like insurance companies, are regulated at the state level. But the
problem of the electricity economy, if you are concerned about climate change, is now national.

The grid is dumb

Thomas Friedman (awarded the Pulitzer Prize three times for his work with The New York Times, where he serves
as foreign affairs columnist, author of five books on current affairs), Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a
Green Revolution--and How It Can Renew America, published in 2008 by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, page 219-
220

But there were downsides to this largely state-by-state system. To begin with, it is often said that the American
electricity grid that evolved over the years, with all its power stations and transmission lines, is the biggest machine
man has ever made. It may or may not be. But one thing I can tell you for sure about this grid – it is the dumbest big
machine man ever made, and it isn’t just dumb in one way.

There is limited interconnectivity

Thomas Friedman (awarded the Pulitzer Prize three times for his work with The New York Times, where he serves
as foreign affairs columnist, author of five books on current affairs), Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a
Green Revolution--and How It Can Renew America, published in 2008 by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, page 220

There is surprisingly limited integration between these regional grids and even between the individual utilities
within each region. Imagine trying to drive across America, from New York to Los Angeles, without our interstate
highway system – taking just state and local highways – and using only county maps to figure out where you were
going. That’s what it would be like to try to send electrons from New York to Los Angeles. The fact is, you
wouldn’t want to send electrons across the country, because too much electricity would be lost in transmission. But
this patchwork is still a problem. It is very difficult just to move electrons around within regions. Imagine trying to
drive even from Phoenix to Los Angeles only on local roads, and you have an idea of what is it like to try to move
electrons generated at wind farms in northern Arizona to markets in southern California.

The system is poor at pricing

Thomas Friedman (awarded the Pulitzer Prize three times for his work with The New York Times, where he serves
as foreign affairs columnist, author of five books on current affairs), Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a
Green Revolution--and How It Can Renew America, published in 2008 by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, page 220-
221

The system is also dumb in terms of pricing. Our utilities deliver electric power very reliably, but the electrons they
sell are totally undifferentiated electrons. That is, in most cases you pay the same amount for electricity that comes
into your home no matter how it is generated – coal, oil, nuclear, hydro, wind, solar, or natural gas – and no matter
what time of day it is generated, whether at peak or off-peak demand periods. You cannot differentiate.

Most utilities cannot provide specific types of electricity

Thomas Friedman (awarded the Pulitzer Prize three times for his work with The New York Times, where he serves
as foreign affairs columnist, author of five books on current affairs), Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a
Green Revolution--and How It Can Renew America, published in 2008 by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, page 221

Finally, the utility system is dumb in that, in most cases, there is no two-way communication between you and your
utility. You as a consumer cannot demand, and the utility cannot provide, a specific kind of electricity generation for
a specific price to a specific machine.

Without an improved grid, alternative energy will fail (also in Alt. Energy is bad brief)

Michael Noble (executive director of Fresh Energy, a Minnesota- based nonprofit that promotes clean energy, has
30 years of experience working on energy issues) September 8, 2009, “Pumping Up the Grid: Key Step to Green
Energy,” Yale Environment 360, http://e360.yale.edu/content/print.msp?id=2186

As America gets serious about the twin crises of oil dependency and climate change, many analysts believe that
wind power — and eventually solar power — will make the largest carbon-free contributions to a new energy
supply. But America’s aging electrical transmission system is renewable energy’s Achilles heel, and unless a broad
policy consensus to upgrade our electrical grid is forged soon, the potential of wind and solar power will be vastly
diminished.

For wind to reach its full potential, the grid must be updated

Michael Noble (executive director of Fresh Energy, a Minnesota- based nonprofit that promotes clean energy, has
30 years of experience working on energy issues) September 8, 2009, “Pumping Up the Grid: Key Step to Green
Energy,” Yale Environment 360, http://e360.yale.edu/content/print.msp?id=2186

A recent federal study demonstrated how wind energy could grow from 1 percent to 20 percent of U.S. electricity
generation by 2030. With automakers and policymakers increasingly agreeing that electric vehicles and plug-in
hybrids are important to U.S. energy security, greening the electric grid is doubly urgent. To reach this goal, wind
turbines would have to be installed across the nation and offshore. However, in many cases the highest quality wind
is distant from the most densely populated parts of the country, so a major investment in a more robust grid is
essential.

Our grid is severely strained

Michael Noble (executive director of Fresh Energy, a Minnesota- based nonprofit that promotes clean energy, has
30 years of experience working on energy issues) September 8, 2009, “Pumping Up the Grid: Key Step to Green
Energy,” Yale Environment 360, http://e360.yale.edu/content/print.msp?id=2186

Our current electricity transmission infrastructure — the power lines that stretch across the landscape, the
substations, the power poles and distribution lines in America’s cities — is aging and severely strained. Though not
on the brink of collapse, it is critical infrastructure that’s completely outdated for an economy that will increasingly
run on clean electricity. Many lines and substations are old and operating at full capacity, unable to accept the
energy from even a few dozen new wind turbines. Congestion bottlenecks limit the amount of energy that can flow
across the landscape, like a multi-lane highway that narrows to a single lane.

Our grid is not interconnected

Michael Noble (executive director of Fresh Energy, a Minnesota- based nonprofit that promotes clean energy, has
30 years of experience working on energy issues) September 8, 2009, “Pumping Up the Grid: Key Step to Green
Energy,” Yale Environment 360, http://e360.yale.edu/content/print.msp?id=2186

Because wind and solar energy are variable in their output, having a strong interconnected grid system boosts the
system’s ability to take on more and more renewables. For example, if it’s super-windy in Kansas, we could send
the extra energy to Chicago where the wind is calm. Our current web of transmission lines is just not properly sized
— or properly located — to allow vast amounts of energy to do that job.

A plan to solve our grid problems

Michael Noble (executive director of Fresh Energy, a Minnesota- based nonprofit that promotes clean energy, has
30 years of experience working on energy issues) September 8, 2009, “Pumping Up the Grid: Key Step to Green
Energy,” Yale Environment 360, http://e360.yale.edu/content/print.msp?id=2186

What’s needed is what FERC Chairman Jon Wellinghoff has proposed to Congress: to give his agency the authority
to broadly allocate the transmission costs throughout regional operating systems, like MISO. We should treat new
transmission as a public infrastructure, like natural gas pipelines, bridges or transit, or high-speed rail. The solution
is to spread the cost — which will reach many tens of billions of dollars — equitably across all electricity
consumers. Not surprisingly, Wellinghoff’s proposal is generating opposition from some utilities and their political
supporters. But the role of renewable energy transmission is too important to our energy future to let politics as
usual stand in the way.

We should update the grid

Michael Noble (executive director of Fresh Energy, a Minnesota- based nonprofit that promotes clean energy, has
30 years of experience working on energy issues) September 8, 2009, “Pumping Up the Grid: Key Step to Green
Energy,” Yale Environment 360, http://e360.yale.edu/content/print.msp?id=2186

Congress should mandate that the regional independent system operators plan the transmission systems we
desperately need. We must have laws that require meaningful public participation in routing of new transmission
lines; but environmental opposition must not stop transmission that’s crucial to protect the environment and slow
global warming. Finally, our policies must spell out a method of sharing the costs of building a 21st century grid. If
the President, Congress, and FERC act together to create a new transmission system, America will inevitably realize
its potential for renewable electricity. Otherwise we will stymie development of the clean energy that could be a
cornerstone of America’s economic and environmental future.