Most people who live in my area do not realize that much of the United State is not connected to those big power carrying transmission lines, I live about ten miles from Dresden Nuclear Power station which was the first commercially owned nuclear Power Station. It went on line in 1957 about 14 years before we moved into the area. The Commonwealth Edison Company built a network of those big transmission lines spreading out from the station like the strands of a spider web. When they added two more nukes, the web expanded so my area is crisscrossed with the lines. Other fossil plants have come and gone, and a new gas fired plant has been built across the road from Dresden.

             Since these lines were mostly built before we moved here. I don’t remember any big objections like I see today about pipe lines. However around the country the “not in my backyard” groups and the fossil industry are blocking attempts for a true and much needed national macro-grid so power can be sent from one region to another. That means wind, solar, and battery and nuclear power can be sent from one region to another. That means Green Energy can be moved around the country cheaply. Building a national grid would allow power to come into an area that has lost its local power generators such as what happened in Texas during 2021 winter storm froze its fossil plants. Their only outside link was Energy’s small transmission lines to some areas of East Texas. Pride goeth after the storm, because the Texas grid is going to finally connect to a regional grid for emergency high cost use. Some of Houston hasn’t recovered from the June hurricane damage.

            In some states landowners have no ability to keep those towers off their land even if they are paid for the right. We need that macro grid connecting the Southwest’s massive solar projects and the Midwest’s wind farms to the users. So how do we get it done?

            About twelve years ago a genius, Dale Osborn, working for the Midwest Power Grid (MISD) had a brilliant idea which overcomes the landowner complaints and the battle with the conservation groups. The free land exists across our nation. It is called the Interstate Highway system. The poles are located between lanes or inside the fences. The highways go where the grid needs to go.

            Osborn had worked in a European power company and was familiar with another necessary change. Instead of a power losing alternating current the macro-grid would carry direct current which would allow power from the West coast to reach the East coast with little loss. As a local company got power from the macro grid they would change it to agree with their sixty hertz grid. China uses direct current lines to ship an unbelievable twelve gigawatts at 1.1 million volts from its power generating southwest to its East Coast Plants and population. Our AC lines do not even compare.

Much of this essay can be found in the extensive article in the Sierra Club’s Fall 2023 issue. We are members of this great organization.