Issues of concern to people who live in the west: property rights, water rights, endangered species, livestock grazing, energy production, wilderness and western agriculture. Plus a few items on western history, western literature and the sport of rodeo... Frank DuBois served as the NM Secretary of Agriculture from 1988 to 2003. DuBois is a former legislative assistant to a U.S. Senator, a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Interior, and is the founder of the DuBois Rodeo Scholarship.
Friday, September 21, 2012
Lack of transmission lines keeps N.M. from meeting solar potential
Even as renewable power projects get a boost from the federal
government, a lack of transmission lines prevents states such as New
Mexico — where the sun shines more than 300 days a year — from
converting the obvious potential into real watts that can charge
smartphones and run air conditioners thousands of miles away. Aside from Phoenix, the nation’s sixth largest city, and Las Vegas,
Nev., which glows around the clock, the region’s rural stretches — the
ideal places for acres of solar panels — have few energy demands. And
sending solar power from there to population centers isn’t as simple as
loading coal into boxcars and shipping it cross country. “We have incredible renewable energy resources,” U.S. Energy
Secretary Steven Chu said during a visit earlier this year to a solar
research lab in New Mexico. “The bad news is they’re where there are not
many people. We need a distribution system that can accommodate that.” Transmission lines are key to developing the region’s solar
resources. The problem is existing lines are maxing out, especially as
the push intensifies to bring online more renewable energy. Building new
lines can take years or even decades of cutting through a tangle of
bureaucracy. Spanning some 200,000 miles, much of the nation’s existing
transmission system is aging and will need replacement before 2030,
according to preliminary findings of a new Department of Energy study on
transmission congestion. In New Mexico, there were 18 utility-scale solar projects in the
pipeline during the last fiscal year compared to none in 2010. But major
transmission proposals that would crisscross the state are still in the
permitting phase. Some progress has been made in the last two years, but the lofty
goals set years ago by former Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson to develop
megaprojects and make New Mexico the “solar capital” of the U.S. have
yet to be realized. Part of it has to do with competition...more
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