An Electricity Interstate for the United States

Today, the U.S. has a historic opportunity to lead the accelerating global energy revolution.

Until now, the U.S. has been the global energy leader. Its abundant, cheap energy and robust manufacturing provided economic and security advantages. Over the last several decades, it has offshored large swaths of its manufacturing base. If the U.S. also cedes its energy leadership, its knowledge and information industries (artificial intelligence, data centers, etc.) will move elsewhere to thrive.

A bonanza of new electric energy potential is in the Great Plains. Natural gas fields from the Barnett in Texas to the Bakken in North Dakota hold most of the nation’s reserves. Great Plains wind and solar electricity generation has about five times as much available production per square mile as the rest of the U.S. Natural gas electricity is always available, but costs about 40 percent more than unsubsidized Great Plains wind and solar generation. Electricity from new coal and nuclear plants is much more expensive.

Exciting new technology is coming for geothermal energy, but it is located in remote areas of the West with little transmission available. The existing electric transmission system cannot move this cheap and abundant energy to the East and West Coasts. The U.S. Northeast and West Coasts will become high-cost energy deserts without a revolution in long-distance transmission.

The U.S. could take advantage of inexpensive electric energy from natural gas, wind and solar sources, which are now available. Our nation’s electricity demand is expected to rise 15 to 20 percent in the next decade. A supply-side program for energy abundance that does not deal with the transmission bottleneck will not succeed.

What is needed is a network of direct current or DC electricity transmission, integrated with a modernized alternating current or AC transmission system.

A mesh-connected national DC grid, called a SuperGrid, could move energy at low cost over the whole nation with active routing, moving electric energy from areas with an excess to areas with a shortfall. In addition, existing AC transmission lines can double their capacity by “reconductoring," replacing traditional aluminum lines with advanced conductors.

An Electricity Interstate would include the SuperGrid, reconductoring and other aspects of a world-leading electricity system. All energy generators, including nuclear, coal, wind, solar, natural gas and geothermal, could compete in a national electricity market. Energy subsidies could be decreased as the national market lowers electricity prices.

I organized a seven-year study by researchers to answer a simple question: If wind and solar electricity became less expensive than fossil fuel electricity, what role would they have in U.S. electric energy production?

Our group used advanced supercomputer simulations with two requirements: First, the electricity supply over the entire U.S. must be 100 percent available every hour for a whole year. Second, all generators could compete (no subsidies) hour by hour in a national electricity market to supply energy at the lowest cost. If the existing transmission could not move the electricity as needed, new transmission could be added, but it had to be paid for.

The lowest cost, 100 percent reliable electricity came from a natural gas, wind and solar-based system. The key was the national mesh-connected transmission system — the SuperGrid. In addition to lower energy costs, a U.S. Electricity Interstate would significantly reduce U.S. carbon dioxide emissions.

Of the leading competitors for 21st-century primacy that low-cost energy can bring in the remainder of the 21st century, China is ahead and Europe is second. The U.S. could take the lead through an aggressive effort to build a national Electricity Interstate.

This giant construction project (jobs!) would harken back to Lincoln's grand vision of creating the continental railways and President Dwight Eisenhower's genius of launching the national Interstate Highway system. A congressional bill to create a modernized transmission system could have bipartisan support because it would lower the energy cost for businesses and families and reduce carbon emissions.The bill could cut through the legal paralysis that all U.S. energy projects face. A single legal entity authorized by Congress could dispense with legal challenges in one year.

The SuperGrid can be built in years, not decades. The key to rapid implementation is to use underground cables along existing land rights-of-way and underwater cables (on the bottom of rivers and the U.S. coastal shelf). The initial system could stretch coast to coast. It could consist of about 20,000 miles of 3 billion-watt DC cables, touching every state and costing about $200 billion based on similar U.S. and European projects.

The SuperGrid could be built and operated similarly to highway toll roads. Companies would get a federal franchise to construct, operate and maintain system sections, such as the line from Cheyenne to Des Moines. The government could provide performance requirements and guarantee low-interest financial-sector loans for the projects. The SuperGrid would pay for itself with usage fees, estimated at 3 cents per kilowatt-hour, to move electric energy from anywhere to anywhere in the U.S. The taxpayers would pay nothing.

Transmission in buried cables does not start wildfires, nor will weather events like hurricanes, wind and ice storms disrupt power. An underground SuperGrid would provide crucial protection from attacks like Russia’s destruction of Ukraine’s energy system. Like Eisenhower’s Interstate highway system, the Electricity Interstate would provide the U.S. with immense economic and security benefits for decades to come.

Alexander E. MacDonald is a scientist, energy expert and author.

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