It’s over-simplified, but this post at The Sietch Blog gives a good breakdown of where the renewable energy to power the U.S. could come from, complete with map illustrations of resource locations.
First up is wind power. “The upper Midwest has been called the Saudi Arabia of wind,” the author notes, and goes on to say the problem with wind power isn’t space or wary landowners, but the scarce number of transmission lines.
There are few major cities in that area, and even fewer heavy duty low loss transmission lines. To tap this excellent resource the government would have to invest in transmission lines, or make it easy for private companies to do so. We have the technology, we have the turbines, we even have the market forces to make it happen. What we don’t have is a policy that encourages it. American could certainly use the jobs, however…
Solar, geothermal and biomass energy sources are also have potential in most regions of the country, and no single renewable source could be the power provider at any one time for any particular area.
The author comes back to the question of power transmission and distribution, and the need for massive federal investment in the national electrical grid and lineman training programs. We may not always agree with everything the environmentalists say, but NECA knows the only way to get any of this done with through a smarter, stronger national electrical grid – and highly-trained lineman to safely handle the work.
March 22nd, 2010 at 3:38 pm
[...] Community power systems are doing a marvelous job of bringing green energy closer to home, but this article illustrates that without the necessary infrastructure, the full potential of energy independence in the U.S. can’t be realized. And right now, we don’t have a clear way to move this investment forward — either through government funding or an environment that would make it easy for private companies to…. [...]