Short answer: When far too few infrastructure planners have asked themselves:
How are we going get all this Clean Renewable Energy, from Point A to Point B?
From the places where Nature gives us abundant Natural Resources to turn into Electricity, to the places where People put down roots, often hundreds -- if not thousands of miles away.
Grid Problems Trigger Rolling Wind-Farm Outages in Pacific Northwest
William Pentland, blogs.forbes.com -- Apr. 14 2011
The seemingly endless expansion of wind power production in the United States has pushed large parts of the nation’s electric grid to the limits of its abilities. Now, in the Pacific Northwest, the power grid is pushing back.
Wind power producers in Oregon and Washington State are likely to be the first casualties claimed in the impending morass triggered by calls for reverse rolling power outages at wind farms to keep the regional transmission system operating smoothly. Needless to say, wind investors are pissssssssed. [...]
Perhaps there really IS -- too much of a good thing -- when it comes to Free, Renewable Energy -- especially when Investing in the necessary Infrastructure Improvements -- is cast as "Wasteful Spending", by far too many short-sighted people, who can't see beyond their own Bank Accounts ...
Overgeneration -- Too Much of a Good Thing.
If current Wind Power trends are any guide -- get used to hearing that term ...
BPA backs away from turbine shutdown plan
by Ted Sickinger, The Oregonian, eastoregonian.com -- April 15, 2011
[...]
Overgeneration typically occurs in the spring and early summer, when snow runoff and heavy rains combine to increase hydro generation and the same storm fronts rapidly ramp wind turbines. The BPA says the dam operators have only limited flexibility to dial back hydro generation to accommodate wind surges because dumping water through the dams’ spillways raises dissolved nitrogen levels in the river, which can harm migrating fish.
The result, BPA officials say, is that the agency is left with more power than regional customers need or that an already congested transmission system can ship out of the region.
“Eventually, you just run out of places to put it,” said Doug Johnson, a BPA spokesman.
[...]
The capacity of wind farms connected to the BPA’s transmission network has ballooned from 250 megawatts in 2005 to more than 3,500 today and is expected to double again in the next two years . That outstrips demand growth in the region and is being driven in large part by California utilities, which are required to meet a third of their customers’ electricity needs with renewables by 2020.
Oregon and Washington have their own mandates, but more than half the wind power generated in the Northwest is sold under long-term contact to California. Congested transmission often means the only things exported are the associated renewable energy certificates that buyers use to comply with state mandates. The electricity often stays in the region, dumped into this region’s wholesale market, depressing prices for electricity from all sources.
Well can't we build "more capacity" to deliver that Excess Energy from where it's generated to where it's needed?
Well yes we can. But that takes Planning, that takes Money, that takes Vision.
Unfortunately, Supply-side Economics, would rely on the Market to "create" such long-term Infrastructure Delivery systems.
As a result we are, where we are today -- with extremely short-sighted, stop-gap Energy Grid plans. Piece-mealing it as we go ... as local market forces (might) demand it. (Isn't that how the Nationwide Highway system got built -- NOT hardly.)
BPA to start work on wind power transmission line
By Kevin Gaboury, The Lewiston Morning Tribune, Idaho -- April 14, 2011
The Bonneville Power Administration is set to begin construction on a 500-kilovolt transmission line that will carry wind power from the Central Ferry Substation in Garfield County to the Lower Monumental Substation in Walla Walla County.
Approximately 2.5 miles of the 38-mile line will be built in the northwest corner of Garfield County, transferring renewable power from wind energy products like the soon-to-be-completed Lower Snake River Wind Energy Project.
[...]
Milstein said the system in that area of the state currently does not have enough capacity to handle the wind energy coming online.
"That section of the grid is kind of a bottleneck right now," he said. "It's like trying to put four lanes of traffic on a two-lane highway. We're trying to expand that capacity.
[...]
The project is expected to create 170 jobs associated with construction, Milstein said.
Investing in Infrastructure means Investing in Jobs -- American Jobs.
No wonder Johnny-come-lately Fiscal Hawks -- hate it!
I remember when Investing in Infrastructure meant Investing in America's Future, meant Investing a foundation for Future Growth and Productivity.
When it meant, "leaving the world better than we found it."
I miss those commonsense, compassionate days ... a time of abundant Hope and "real" Opportunities.
Assuming America had a change a heart, and suddenly saw the "wisdom" of Investing in our "Common Future" again -- how would we even get started?
Well, if America where "smart about it" -- we'd take a few cues from other Countries that have been trying to solve this Energy Gridlock problem for a while now.
Countries like China, who are leading the way, moving Power from Point A to Point B
-- afterall when you got BILLIONS of power-hungry Consumers -- you GOT to do something ...
Economic Assessment of HVDC Project in Deregulated Energy Markets (pdf)
DRPT 2008 -- Nannjing, China, April 6-9, 2008
Third International Conference on
Electric Utility Deregulation and Restructuring and Power Technologies
Shu Wang, Member, IEEE, Jinxiang Zhu, Senior Member, IEEE,
Lan Trinh, Member, IEEE, and Jiuping Pan, Senior Member, IEEE
[pg 1]
High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) transmission technology has become increasingly attractive to deregulated energy markets due to its salient characteristics in comparison with AC transmission. In particular, the precise, fast and flexible controllability of HVDC transmission power flow can greatly improve power grid reliability, utilization and efficiency.
[...]
[pg 2]
Bulk Power Delivery through Long Distance
HVDC transmission systems are particularly suited and economic for delivering bulk power through long distance. In comparison to HVAC transmission, HVDC transmission consumes less conductor consumption, does not require intermediate substations and voltage compensation devices. As such, the annualized capital investment and operational cost of HVDC projects become lower than that of HVAC projects once the length of transmission system is longer than the so-called break-even distance.
In addition, delivery of bulk power by HVDC transmission incurs less energy losses than through HVAC transmission. In recent years, a number of ±500kV HVDC transmission projects had been constructed in China to transmit bulk power from central and western hydro generation plants to the heavy load centers in the east coast region and the southern region. More HVDC transmission projects are planned and some of them already under construction including two ±500kV HVDC transmission projects.
[pg 6]
CONCLUSION
With many attractive features, HVDC technology will be more widely considered as transmission expansion option in deregulated energy markets.
[...]
Therefore, HVDC model in market simulation program must correctly represent HVDC controllability and incremental losses, respectively. It will improve the accuracy for economic assessment of HVDC projects. In addition to HVDC model, the market simulation program must have detailed model of transmission systems, generation bid curves, and transmission constraints.
So HVDC can cost effectively "bulk move" their Hydro-power across their Country to the sprawling city centers where it's needed most.
Smart. Very Smart. ... Supply and Demand.
If only Supply-sider Americans where as smart, and forward looking as our "Economic Partner" in the far east ...
Perhaps we wouldn't be faced with our current "overgeneration dilemma" -- of "dumping" the Excess Hydro-power or "dumping" the Excess Wind Power.
Hmmmm? I thought Americans were brought up to be more "ingenious" than this ... we used to be.
Some "thinkers" still are forward-looking and can look down the road, beyond the "next stock market report" ...
"WHAT ARE YOU OPTIMISTIC ABOUT?"
World Question Center
Oliver Morton -- Chief News and Features Editor, Nature; Author, Mapping Mars
My current optimism is for solar energy. The simple facts of the matter are that the sun provides more energy to the earth in an hour than humanity makes use of in a year. Of the non-fossil-fuel energy sources, all the big players that are not nuclear--biomass, hydroelectric, wind--are ultimately driven by the sun.
I am optimistic that direct solar conversion--photovoltaic cells and their future analogues--will come to take its place among and then surpass these more established technologies a lot more quickly than most people outside the area currently imagine. I'm hoping for at least a terawatt of solar by 2025, two if we're lucky, and dramatic cuts in carbon dioxide emissions as a result.
I wonder if this "hopeful scientist" Oliver Morton [one of a hundred respondents] -- considered the Infrastructure Logjam, America is now facing, and the rhetorical football it represents, as the latest "culprit" in the "Shift the National-Debt-Blame game"?
Probably not. He's probably only looking at the "Terawatts" Abundant Free Renewable Energy that Nature is providing -- and thinking: "It's only a matter of time."
Sooner or later Humanity MUST learn to Invest in our Common Future -- and MAKE it Happen.
To learn how to recast those necessary "Infrastructure Improvements" as the path to sanity and growth, instead of the path to despair and more debt.
Of course first, those short-sighted people from the "Supply-sider School of Economics", will have to, on occasion, learn to see beyond their own Bank Accounts ...
And perhaps even learn that,
Sometimes the measure of a Society, is "how leave the world for future generations"
-- and NOT how you found that world and leveraged and exploited it, for your own personal benefit.
That is one tall order, I know. But a necessary one, if Humanity is ever to get from Point A to Point B, ... find our way to that far off sustainable place;
if, by some miracle, our market-driven society learns to choose the "sane path" to the future ... and not just keep trying to "drill our way" our of this mess.
To decide to invest in long-term progress -- and not just short-term gains.
Someday ... "It's only a matter of time."