NPR: Power Hungry: Visualizing The U.S. Electric Grid
File under tres cool: Interactive map of the current US electrial grid.
Is anyone else surprised by the relative lack of high-voltage lines in the Northeast and Great Lakes states? Is that because there is enough local generation capacity to meet local needs? Or is it an artifact of the way the power “system” was built?
I am not an electrical engineer, but it seems to me that a few more high-voltage lines to somewhere outside the region would be prudent. Profitable, even – selling surplus power becomes more economical when delivered over higher-voltage (less lossy) transmission lines. And building in some redundancy would also be a good thing, in case of an attack on the transmission grid. I am not a mad bomber, either, yet it seems to me that those transmission towers are pretty vulnerable structures.
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[...] Two of those reasons are gone, and the grid upgrades needed to deliver wind energy will solve a problem that has needed attention for too [...]