Government-supported wind power, new green transmission lines, a vast and environmentally responsible expansion of America's public-transportation network? Yes we can!
Or at least, we could, in theory — if it wasn't for the fact that Obama's ardor is no match for entrenched entitlement programs and massive inefficiencies that are the result of legislative pork and payola going back almost a hundred years. Philip K. Howard explains:
Experts say it will take 10 years even to get started with a new transmission line. Mandated environmental reviews have evolved into multi-thousand page analyses of virtually every pebble that might be disturbed—followed by litigation in federal court by any person or group that doesn’t like the project. After (or if) that is completed, procurement laws require a multi-year process for any project of any size—followed by litigation "protests" by any losing contractor.
In the year 2020, after final approvals, work can begin. The project will cost 50% to 100% more than a comparable private project, however, because of a warehouse stuffed full of federal freebies designed to benefit one group or another. For example, the Davis-Bacon Act, signed into law by President Herbert Hoover in 1931, mandates wages that are, on average, about 25% higher than the market.
America has a crumbling, outdated infrastructure — and can't fix it because America has a massive, outdated legal infrastructure. Decade after decade, Congress has poured layers of legal concrete onto the machinery of government. Almost never does it go back and clean out what doesn't work or is no longer needed. The cost is not merely inefficiency. Officials no longer have the authority to try to meet our public goals.
President Obama can't speed things up, or avoid waste, or do anything about all these regulatory barriers. The law of the land — all 100 million words of it — stands between him and his capacity to act.
In the year 2020, after final approvals, work can begin. The project will cost 50% to 100% more than a comparable private project, however, because of a warehouse stuffed full of federal freebies designed to benefit one group or another. For example, the Davis-Bacon Act, signed into law by President Herbert Hoover in 1931, mandates wages that are, on average, about 25% higher than the market.
America has a crumbling, outdated infrastructure — and can't fix it because America has a massive, outdated legal infrastructure. Decade after decade, Congress has poured layers of legal concrete onto the machinery of government. Almost never does it go back and clean out what doesn't work or is no longer needed. The cost is not merely inefficiency. Officials no longer have the authority to try to meet our public goals.
President Obama can't speed things up, or avoid waste, or do anything about all these regulatory barriers. The law of the land — all 100 million words of it — stands between him and his capacity to act.
Sorry, but to the extent that Howard isn't just talking BS, the issue is far more complicated that he alludes to. For one thing, in Texas, major transmission lines are routinely conceived, designed, and built within a three year period.
For another, it sounds simple: build wind generators and transmission lines to ship cheap power to urban areas. It isn't. In Texas, for example, there is virtually NO CONSUMER COST BENEFIT FROM WIND POWER. This is because the "deregulated" market has been rigged by producers to price wind power at the same rate as the highest priced thermal generation. The cost of building transmission, even at twice the legitimate price, is an insignificant cost to the consumer when compared to the cost he is being forced to pay to producers in this rigged power market --a market DESIGNED to produce scarcity pricing, without actual scarcity.
Furthermore, transmission lines require right-of-way, which for big projects often means "condemnation" --or confiscation of private property. How much easier it is to build transmission lines when you can dispense with the legal process for confiscating private property, as the regulators are attempting to do here in Texas for the wind generators You used to have to demonstrate a "need" for condemnation --now they're trying to short-circuit the process by eliminating the need requirement. Should property owners have no recourse to the courts then, in the interest of "progress?"
What's going on in the power industry is far more complicated than the mere question of building transmission lines for wind generators. In addition to technical issues regarding the integration of large amounts of wind power, in Texas consumers are being looted by a phony market system designed to favor power producers and speculators.
Posted by: hermesten | Wednesday, February 18, 2009 at 12:28 PM
hermesten: First, wind power is NOT cheaper than power from coal-powered steam plants. The wind is free, but capital and maintenance costs are much, much higher. Those turbines are quite fragile compared to heavy steam boilers and turbines, and with turbines spread across miles and miles of countryside, travel costs get added to the repair costs. (With conventional power, linemen have to travel, but the generating plant staff doesn't.)
Second, the power companies don't directly sell wind power. They are not set up to cut customers out of the grid when the wind isn't blowing, nor are there a significant number of customers that would go for that deal. (If you are willing to live that way, move to somewhere around Lubbock and buy your own wind turbine...) So a good part of the price of "wind power" is the cost of ensuring availability when the customer wants power - by having thermally generated electricity standing by to substitute for wind power.
Posted by: markm | Monday, March 02, 2009 at 08:40 PM