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Making clean energy isn’t enough: We also have to move it.
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In the near future, the energy made in the US is going to be much greener. The country’s current goal is for solar plants alone to make nearly half of US electricity by 2050. But we can’t just build solar plants where coal and gas plants used to be. They have to be built where it’s… sunny. And wind turbines have to be built where it’s windy. The problem is, that’s not always where the people who need the power are.
The distance from energy source to energy need is about to get a lot bigger. And the US is going to need more high-voltage transmission lines. A lot more. As soon as possible. While solar plants can be built relatively fast, high-voltage transmission projects can take up to 10 years. So experts say we need to start proactively building them, right now.
This is the second of five videos we’re releasing on climate coverage this week. You can watch the first video on extreme heat 🌡 and what cities are doing to combat that here: https://youtu.be/ZQ6fSHr5TJg
And the third video on prescribed burns 🔥 for forests here: https://youtu.be/0o6ezu_h6iE
Sources and further reading:
Much of the map data in the piece comes from the Net-Zero America study out of Princeton University: https://netzeroamerica.princeton.edu/
This map from the US Energy Information Association is a good way to see what power plants and high-voltage power lines are near you (if you’re in the US): https://www.eia.gov/state/maps.php
Vermont Public Radio reported on the energy bottleneck we talk about in the very beginning of the video: https://www.vpr.org/vpr-news/2020-12-15/transmission-grid-bottlenecks-in-northeast-kingdom-stall-solar-development
And here’s more about that denied power plant from local Vermont TV station WCAX: https://www.wcax.com/content/news/Regulators-deny-Derby-solar-project-504867011.html
This other great study is what calculated how much renewable energy potential there is in just those 15 middle states: https://acore.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Corporate-Demand-and-Transmission-January-2018.pdf
More about the 2018 Camp Fire in California and the investigation that determined it was started by electrical transmission lines: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/15/officials-camp-fire-deadliest-in-california-history-was-caused-by-pge-electrical-transmission-lines.html
And if you want to get really into the details of how these lines work, I found the Edison Tech Center really helpful: https://edisontechcenter.org/wires.html
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About The Author
Thanks for watching. This is the second of five videos we're putting out about climate coverage this week. You can watch the first one here, on extreme heat and what cities can do to combat it: https://youtu.be/ZQ6fSHr5TJg
Policy proposals are meaningless.
Its Time to Build
What about intermittence of RE? How is this going to be addressed? In order to achieve an energy system relied exclusively on renewable energy systems and ensure that there are no power shortfalls during the day, the development of energy storage systems is required too. Every day is not sunny, neither windy…
If Biden spent the money on renewables instead of Ukraine, you'd already have what you need.
We can build them underground
How about nuclear instead, wind and solar have such high limitations that it isn't worth it imo
I hope we have tesla wireless electricity technology it is amazing to see that in this all video they not even think about that we have to focus on create wireless electricity this call brain washing if we human be like this I dont think that we become a real advance civilization
Instead of giving all our printed money to Ukraine, we could update our grid.
To bad hydrogen cars and future advisement in hydrogen technology is going to make all of this obsolete. Climate change doesn't exist.
wind wont work , solar wont work , too much demand , if every house in America had solar on the roof …maybe …
Isn't there new types of pylon wires that can take twice the current of older cables. Replacing wires seems a much simpler and less costly option.
1:57 so if 50% of our energy is coming from the sun and we’re trying to go against global warming I want to be their lack of sun exposure which would lead to a lack of energy.
2:23 electricity is pretty hot, so that’s contradicting
4:20 so more steel factory and more pollution
6:25 What about all the dead winter Bynes and the dead batteries from the solar panels
Thanka for 273 subscriber completed❤🎉👑🥰💥🙏🔥
just put solar roofs carports and put batterys on every home
USA is playing politic with the CLIMATE.
Placing deadly high tariffs on EV, Solar panels, etc. and all other green products from China is not "mean" to achieve the CLIMATE goal.
America is accusing China OVER CAPACITY in the energy fields and forcing other nations to impose high tariffs on CLIMATE products.
Unplug your cybertruck
Vermont is also the size of my county so
Can we build electrified high speed rail and use the high voltage lines for energy transport?
Historically windmills were built close to where they were needed. If that was still the case this video would not matter.
Energy Networks are a big kettle of fish. Distributed Energy Resources, Battery Energy Storage Systems, and Load Shifting are all interesting solutions that a 6 minute vox video wouldn't cover
Support Nuclear energy!
Why not move to build more homes with solar panels. So the energy does not have to be transmitted great distances. I live in south Texas, lots of sun here. Currently the cost to install solar panels does not have a realistic “break even point” on the investment. It takes too long to pay for itself in saving.
Is it possible to put these in tunnels underground? So there isn’t as many opportunities for things to come into contact with the wires?
I did a brief overlook of the Princeton article and I wasn't able to find a good refence for the capital required by 2030, if someone could point me in the right direction that would be incredibly helpful
“They estimate that it would cost $320 billion in investments to build a nation wide high voltage DC system”. Lol! We all know it would end up costing 3 to 5 times that, would take 15 – 20 years, and would not even be completed as promised in the end.
Just put solar where the city is. Put it on the buildings. Certain areas will need more solar panels to get enough energy. This would solve the issue of building tons of electrical power lines. The sun shines everywhere. The other idea is tunneling power cables.
More wires would not fix the problem. It would work as a stopgap—but longterm, it would be a disaster logistically and impractical given the physical limitations of the materials wires are made of.
The automobile is the model for the future. Personal generators distributed en mass, disconnected from a large grid.
Ironically the more renewables we build, the more non-renewables we have to build to back them up…. the only real answer moving forward is nuclear. I'm a power engineer, so I have a background in this.
You can either add more lines or you can add storage. More lines are no advantage when there is not enough power but batteries are. A distributed storage system has many advantages over real time long distance power delivery.
Windmills,s already ruined our landscape in the laural highlands of Pa. , you want more ruination.
So the world better create as many renewables as possible in the next 4 years