765 kV: Broadband for Electricity
Billionaire T. Boone Pickens recently scaled back his plan for massive wind farms – though he’s still taking delivery on those 667 wind turbines he has on order. One of the reasons he gave for the change, besides the price of oil, was transmission problems. High capacity transmission is simply not available.
The coasts consume the majority of the electricity, but some of the best locations for wind farms and solar farms is inland. Practical renewable energy solutions will remain tantalizingly just out of reach until high-capacity cross-country transmission is available. The best way to move high volumes of electricity is via 765 kV. The 765kV grid requires no new technologies, no scientific breakthroughs. We know how to do this today.
Go to the “Energy Map of America” and nav through the various maps. Notice that the Electrical map shows the country is most covered by 230 kilovolt (kV), some coverage of 345 kV, 500 kV lines on the coasts, just a few lines of 765 kV.
In 1830, the US had only 40 miles of railroad track. By 1870, there were 50,000 miles, and by 1890, 163,000 miles. By 1900, countrywide agriculture was in high gear.
In 1919 it took two weeks for a truck convoy led by a young lieutenant named Dwight Eisenhower to cross the US. In 1940, the PA turnpike opened, and in 1956, the national interstate highway system was signed into law by the then President Dwight Eisenhower.
Similar comparisons can be drawn with flight, telephone, and mail. It took the US working together to do what no one person was able to do alone. Move mountains to achieve progress.
We have a similar opportunity in front of us right now. By building the infrastructure, we enable economic growth. We have seen this before, and it will happen again.
There is little doubt remaining that the future power needs of this planet will have to be met through renewable energy. The wars, grief, and terrorism that are spawned from an oil-dependant global economy will continue to have an unacceptable impact on the international balance of power. The environmental impact of our dependence of fossil fuels is undeniable.
The United States must, once again, set the example for the world to follow. We must lead in the development of renewable energy. The solutions to the engineering problems of how to produce the power effectively – those solutions will come from entrepreneurs and the private sector. The grid, the infrastructure, the arteries that will allow capitalism to flow – that must be the responsibility of our government.
Like the great public works projects of the past, the 765 kV grid has the potential to define and reshape the economy of this nation for decades to come. We need only have the will to make it happen.
October 27th, 2009 at 7:47 pm
Dear Mike . Congratulations for this grate Blog !
Broadband for electricity is a grate idea, something the whole planets is been wainting for, since so long, renewable energy is the FUTURE, and the US, is the right country to bring the planet into the right track again !!! Thank you !!!
January 30th, 2010 at 5:57 pm
Excellent. Now we can pollute the world to an unheard of level. The production of photovoltaics is the single greatest producer per watt of toxic chemicals of any power producing technology. Also, the effective life of panels in real world installations makes them barely able to produce more than the energy needed to manufacture them. Good luck scaling up that technology. The key to energy efficiency is reduction of consumption. Just another case of believing that technology itself can necessarily improve our lives without intelligent application.
February 1st, 2010 at 10:25 am
Andrew,
Good point. I’m not sure what the payback on wind turbines is either, regarding their production carbon footprint. But there’s gotta be payback down the road where the sheer number of alternative energy plants mitigates the effects of carbon release.
Mike
March 30th, 2010 at 2:47 pm
I was searching for small solar panel information and found this article. I discovered similar websites, like homesolarpower(dot)multiply(dot)com /journal/item/1/Building _Your_Own_Home _Solar_Panel that help you install your very own solar panels but I need to find out where to get the pv panels.
March 31st, 2010 at 10:23 am
Thanks for the link, Blaine (the one your name links to I kept live, as Instructables is one of our favorite sites (and the comments on Instructables regarding spam links I somewhat respect…).
The real awesomeness of your Instructables link is that one of the comments refers to the real difficulties of residential solar, but also links to a really cool site out of North Carolina State University, http://www.dsireusa.org, which lists programs in each state that help individuals, communities and companies get their feet wet in alternative energy options.
The Energy Map of America I link to in the blog above shows that each square meter of PV doesn’t produce all that much electricity. It’s really crucial to know how many square meters will effectively complement your grid consumption, and what your ROI is (in years). Is the glacial ROI worth it? [Also, is the feel good factor worth it?]
A really sobering study done by a professor at San Juan College in New Mexico identified that a solar farm containing an area of PV cells 230 miles long and 230 miles wide would be required to power the US. Wow.
May 5th, 2010 at 3:21 pm
Electric Current is a great achievement for humans, but we have to learn to love it to make good use of it. I know what I’m saying, I know that it wont last forever but we’ll always find ways to get cheap electricity from from our lovely Earth. I would love to tell you about the use of electricity for healing purposes but don’t thing you will be interested. Thanx for taking time to write.
May 6th, 2010 at 9:52 am
SmartMeter (or Guido Evans?) - though I’m mystified why your IP address is in Korea, I see your site is an actual advertisement for a British Gas meter product.
Skycasters likes meters, too. We encourage our customers to check their usage at https://www.skycasters.com/usage .
I agree that we’ll continuously improve how we utilize our environment to extract electricity. That’s why its so critical we be able to channel high volumes of electricity via conduits like the 765 kV lines, already used in various parts of the world. The EU & AU future use of supergrids will underscore this development.
As for electricity for healing … hmmm.