A VERY GOOD POINT

Responding to an earlier article about opposition to the construction of a 765-kilovolt power line from West Virginia through Virginia to Maryland, Kenneth Haapala makes a very good point, and one I've touched on in an earlier post.

[T]he John Amos [power] plant has an effective capacity of 2,640 megawatts and occupies less than one square mile ... [T]he proposed Potomac Appalachian Transmission Highline {transmission line] requires a swath 275 miles long and 2,200 feet wide (about 115 square miles) ....

The transmission line required to distribute the power generated requires roughly 100 times the physical area of the power plant itself! And by extension, roughly 100 times the NIMBY-ism in getting it established.

The essential point is that a truly efficient national energy policy is going to require the energy source be matched to the energy consumer. The California model (import energy and export pollution via distant power plants connected to long transmission lines) just isn’t going to work.

An idea that might work (with modification) is the regional approach proposed by David Crane, president and chief executive of NRG Energy. I’m not wholly in agreement, but the concept has merit.