Expanding America's power grid to connect wind and solar power plants to the urban areas they fuel will require thousands of miles of transmission lines. Most of it will be built in rural areas where locals are not likely to be very welcoming.
This piece from The Daily Yonder looks at the plans and study areas for new transmission lines in rural areas across the country, and the efforts by locals to oppose or prevent them.
"There are tens of thousands of miles of new transmission lines planned or under construction, most traversing ranch and farm land. Some estimate that the country will spend up to $200 billion dollars building out a new electric grid. Most of that money will be spent in rural America, as new transmission lines are strung to connect the wind turbines on the Plains to the cities.
'The wind is the easy part, much easier than the transmission,' said Shelley Sahling-Zart, a vice president of the Lincoln (Nebraska) Electric System. Finding the billions needed for new transmission lines will be difficult. And many of the people standing in the way of this new "superhighway" of high tension lines and giant erector sets of pylons and steel will put up a fuss."
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