Slashdot Mirror
US Could Lower Carbon Emissions 78% With New National Transmission Network (smithsonianmag.com)
mdsolar writes with this story from Smithsonian magazine about how building a national transmission network could lead to a gigantic reduction in carbon emissions. From the story: "The United States could lower carbon emissions from electricity generation by as much as 78 percent without having to develop any new technologies or use costly batteries, a new study suggests. There's a catch, though. The country would have to build a new national transmission network so that states could share energy. 'Our idea was if we had a national 'interstate highway for electrons' we could move the power around as it was needed, and we could put the wind and solar plants in the very best places,' says study co-author Alexander MacDonald, who recently retired as director of NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado."
This message brought to you by incumbent energy cartels that enjoy their power.
I think there's other reasons besides this. Namely, if it's just sharing (instead of selling, as is already done) a few states would take advantage.
Take for example California who refuses to build just about any additional sources of power (practically everything is somehow evil in that state, from nuclear to wind power because it kills birds) and as a result, not only do they have a large amount of coal power there, but they don't even have enough to power their own state, as some 30% of their energy comes from neighboring states.