War Against a Super Grid. By Matthew L. Wald, NYTimes, April 30, 2010. "After several years of debate, a coalition has emerged around the idea of a strong national electric grid, centrally planned and broadly financed, that would promote renewable energy. The group includes giant investor-owned utilities, public power entities, influential elected officials of both parties and state energy officials, and they speak with a single voice. And they oppose it. The group, the Coalition for Fair Transmission Policy, founded in January, is trying to block the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission from approving a series of major transmission paths from wind-rich areas in the middle of the continent to load centers all over and then spreading the cost of the new lines around the whole country. 'It is fundamentally about fairness,' said Sen. Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, who hosted a panel discussion on Tuesday with Sen. Robert Corker, Republican of Tennessee, to denounce such a plan.
"That approach seems counter to three studies in the last two years that propose a transmission 'overlay.' This would be somewhat like an interstate highway system added to a network of local roads and would turn electricity from a product that is mostly locally produced and locally consumed into a national commodity. The most recent of the studies, produced for the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory at the beginning of the year, stressed that wind power would become more valuable as it was dispersed around the country and connected with powerful grid links. Once wind was available from all over the country, it explained, production levels would average out and a steady supply could be predicted."
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