"How can the U.S. build enough transmission lines to combat climate change? Here’s what’s on the table for grid reforms in 2024."
"It’s hard to solve a challenge as sprawling and complex as doubling or tripling the scale of the transmission grids across the U.S. in a little over a decade. But the country’s climate and clean energy goals depend on it.
Study after study has found the country can’t build renewable energy at the pace needed to rapidly decarbonize the power grid without also building a massive amount of new power lines, fast. But over the past half-decade, grid growth has slowed, not accelerated, bogged down by conflicts over siting, permitting and paying for new transmission capacity.
The sheer scale of growth needed is staggering. Achieving the Biden administration’s goal of a zero-carbon grid by 2035 will require 75,000 miles of new high-voltage lines — enough to stretch from Los Angeles to New York City and back 15 times — according to an estimate from Princeton University’s Repeat Project.
While some high-profile, large-scale transmission lines and significant regional grid expansions launched in the past few years, grid experts warn they’re still far from enough to get the country on track to meet federal or state clean-energy goals. And that’s not counting the need for more power lines to make the grid more resilient against extreme weather and to meet the needs of a growing and increasingly electric-powered economy.
In all likelihood, federal action will be needed to get the U.S. power line buildout moving at the pace required to shift the country away from fossil fuels."
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