Texas' Wind Transmission Project Keeps Rolling
This is the first part in a three-part series examining Texas' $5 billion build-out of transmission lines to support wind power, which is encountering increasing opposition.
Last week, to cheers from a crowded courtroom, commissioners in Denton County unanimously passed a resolution opposing the construction of a big new transmission line through their county — even though it would carry clean, renewable wind power. Later today, the company that wants to build the line will file a stack of paperwork refuting some of the objections and asking Texas regulators for permission to proceed anyway.
It's the latest episode in the ...
Comments (5)
Mark Cain via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Why can't they go underground, no unsightly towers, you don't even need to know they are there unless you need to dig.
EyesOfTX
Because that would cost more, and eat into the hundreds of millions of taxpayer subsidy dollars that go to the wind industry every year, and is the only reason why wind power can exist in the first place. One of the biggest scams perpetrated on the American taxpayer, right up there with corn-based ethanol.
Jarrett Hill via Texas Tribune on Facebook
I could be wrong, but wouldn't it be pretty expensive to build them underground, especially through the Hill Country?
Bob Brown via Texas Tribune on Facebook
I maybe wrong but I am fairly sure you can't put a fraction as much power down an plastic insulated buried cable as you can an air insulated raised cable.
It is my opinion that we are thinking of power distibution all wrong. It should be thought of like the internet and everyone should be encouraged to generate power. That way you would have a widely distributed power source and could use mostly already existing lines.
EyesOfTX
The proposed CREZ lines are so expensive, due to enormous rights-of-way and huge towers, that they are almost as costly to put in place as buried lines would be. There is no limit to the amount of power that could transmitted in underground lines.
But of course, the CREZ lines are heavily subsidized by the state - and by ratepayers, mostly unbeknownst to them - so the wind power providers don't have to worry about it either way.