Obama wants to build a better grid right now

This week, the Obama administration told Americans they want to build stuff. Now, Obama has said that to Americans before with the stimulus package. That version of building stuff looked more like the WPA of the 1930s---roads, bridges, hard and solid infrastructure.

This time around, Obama wants to build infrastructure of the less concrete and more dynamic sort---namely, power lines.

He’s focused on seven specific projects in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Minnesota, New Mexico, Nevada, Wyoming, Utah, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Oregon and Wisconsin, and his contribution to the projects isn’t financial. It’s regulatory---or reducing regulatory red tape, you might say.

Oh yes, and the president says it will create thousands of jobs.

To create those new gigs, Obama wants to speed up the federal permitting for those seven projects: getting all the players together, working out a game plan, and making it happen. But, power line siting is more difficult than just getting everyone to chat. After all, Congress chats all the time, and the American people still see a lot of gridlock on that front.

Gridlock on the permitting and siting front is almost inevitable, chatting or no chatting. While it’s certainly an admirable concept to get more power flowing to the people, the people can be rather picky about seeing the inner workings. Everyone wants power; no one wants to live near power lines.

Now, a lot of Obama’s proposed “lucky seven” are in the West. That will help with speeding up siting and permitting. More elbow room, less people. Less people living near those lines means less people complaining about living near those lines. So, a lot of these have at least a decent shot in getting a good, swift kick in the pants to hurry completion.

The projects where Obama’s “hurry up plan” may work include a new 500 kV transmission line proposed by Idaho Power running a 300-mile long, single-circuit from Boardman, Oregon to Melba, Idaho; an Idaho Power/Rocky Mountain Power project between Glenrock, Wyoming and Melba, Idaho once again; the SunZia Transmission plan to construct and operate up to two 500 kV transmission lines in New Mexico and Arizona; and the TransWest Express to assist wind projects in Wyoming.

Those are likely to go off with fewer hitches because they go through a lot of uncharted country and involve not so many folks in the mix. With transmission siting, less is more: less people, less entities, less complications.

The Cascade Crossing Line that involves a lot of substation upgrades around lean and green-leaning Salem, Oregon may have a few hurdles, as might the CapX2020 project in Minnesota and Wisconsin and the Susquehanna-Roseland power line in Pennsylvania and New Jersey that’s heavy on substations and people interaction.

A lawyer for the Citizens Energy Task Force in Wisconsin, which opposes the CapX2020 project, has already been quoted in a local paper asking if the government would just “ram it through no matter what.”

And, locals near the Susquehanna-Roseland line already have a history of protesting the capacity upgrade for a number of reasons: aesthetics, energy fuel source, the location of the line through a recreation area, and because of the tower height required. (Current towers are about 80 feet tall. The new ones could be closer to 200 feet.) The New Jersey Sierra Club has a lawsuit against the proposal as well. There’s even an entire website dedicated to the opposition called “Stop the Lines” which claims the proposed project is about utility “greed” at the state’s expense.

After the White House announcement, Stop the Lines issued a statement saying, “Corporate profit should not be given priority here. Fast-tracking the destruction of a priceless national treasure---the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area---must not be allowed.”

So, all may not be so quick in this expedited expedition.

And, of course, on top of the issue with people living near power there’s the issue of the government’s concept of time. Transmission line siting is considered speedy if accomplished in five years and can take decades. By expediting the process, Obama may only be shaving a few years off. So, in 2015 we might see those New Mexico, Arizona, Wyoming lines start up. By early retirement, I may hear of the Susquehanna-Roseland completion. But, in the end, there’s no way Obama is seeing a foot of new power line before the next election.

So, I hope transmission siting wasn’t a large part of his new campaign.