Climate and energy

New federal transmission legislation to be proposed (Sen. Dorgan’s Office). I think I originally clipped this from Climateer but never got around to posting it, whoops sorry!. U.S. Senator Byron Dorgan (ND) is proposing the transmission part of the Pickens plan, to create a national electric transmission grid and a major expansion of wind and solar energy.

“I will introduce part of the Pickens plan in the U.S. Senate calling for the building of a nationwide electric transmission superhighway. It will allow our country to maximize the potential to produce vast wind energy in the heartland from Texas to North Dakota. And it will allow us to develop solar energy from the southwest to California. We can put that electric energy on the transmission superhighway and move it to where it is needed in our country. By maximizing our production and use of renewable energy here at home, we will reduce our need for imported oil.”

Transmission grid and success of climate policy forever intertwined (NAWindpower). Not necessarily news to us here in Kansas, currently ground zero for cutting edge wind and transmission line discussions, but – NERC just came out with a report on this linkage. Quotable:

“We are concerned that when viewed from a continent-wide perspective, current climate initiatives do not adequately address key reliability objectives, particularly the need for a strong and robust transmission system,” says Rick Sergel, president and CEO of NERC. “As we consider our energy future, it becomes increasingly clear that our success in reducing carbon emissions and realizing energy independence will hinge on our ability to provide reliable, clean, electricity where and when it is needed.”

The report says that the existing bulk transmission network is inadequate to reliably deliver power from new renewable resources to demand centers. Innovative planning and operational mechanisms will be needed as states and provinces attempt to deliver clean energy over already heavily loaded transmission lines to meet renewable portfolio standard requirements.

In addition, managing growing demand will be critical to meeting both climate and reliability goals, making demand-side resources a critical component of the resource mix. Dispatchable demand response will be particularly important as it adds needed system flexibility and supports the integration of new variable generation such as wind power.

A neat looking report than I have been meaning to summarize for WEEKS but just haven’t had the time (and probably won’t, so I’m just going to toss it out to the collective mind)- from policy think tank Newrules.org (bigtime community self-reliance organization), a report on community energy systems, like distributed generation and community wind. Quotable:

Harnessing renewable energy can dramatically improve the economic prospects of many rural areas. But new rules are needed to maximize the economic and social benefits from these new industries, policies that go beyond more, to demanding better. Current federal incentives largely enable a highly centralized and absentee owned renewable energy industry concentrated in relatively few states.

The federal government, states, and rural communities should redesign these policies to encourage a highly decentralized and dispersed renewable energy industry that is significantly locally owned. Doing so would multiply the number of rural areas that benefit from burgeoning renewable energy industries, and would create a sustainable asset whose wealth and revenue will largely remain in revived local communities and regions.

This report examines the current impact of renewable energy on rural communities and identifies existing and potential policies that could dramatically expand the economic benefit this new sector can bring to these communities.

— Maril Hazlett, www.climateandenergy.org