Bill Gates Says High Voltage Lines Will Save America. He’s right.

• Bill Gates advocates building more high-voltage power lines.
• This is the best way to support a 40 to 60 percent increase in electricity demand, he says.
• However, building transmission lines is easier said than done.

Building a green energy future isn’t as easy as building wind and solar farms (although that’s certainly a start). They also need batteries to store that energy, especially when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining, and transmission lines to get that energy from point A to point B.

Progress in these first two categories is progressing well. Wind and solar projects continue quickly replace dirty energy sourcesand many companies are developing storage systems, whether heaviness or iron-air batteriesto ensure power is ready and available. But transmission lines remain a looming problem, and it’s a problem one of the world’s richest men wants to solve.

Microsoft co-founder and former CEO Bill Gates has his hands on almost every aspect of the green energy future. He is actively developing nuclear reactors to replace CO2-emitting coal-fired power plants, and he’s investing in next-generation energy storage solutions– now he turns his attention to the problem of transmission lines. After all, you can generate and store as much energy as you want. But if you don’t have a way of broadcasting it to people’s homes or businesses, it’s not much use.

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“Ever since the electric grid began, utility companies have placed most power plants near cities,” Gates said writes on his blog called Gates Notes. “This model doesn’t work with sun and wind because many of the best places to generate a lot of electricity are far from urban centers.”

Gates comes in to explain that if the US wants to achieve it Net zero carbon emissions target In 2050, the country will need an upgraded energy grid that can handle this An estimated 40 to 60 percent increase electricity demand due to the proliferation of electric vehicles, electric stoves and other electrically powered devices and infrastructure. That means building more power lines, especially where the wind is blowing (Midwest) and the sun is shining (Southwest), and also making them longer so they can reach densely populated centers.

Gates is not The First person to recognize America’s dire situation when it comes to transmission lines. According to one estimate, the USA triple its current transmission capacity when it hopes to be carbon neutral in 30 years.

Gates notes in his blog that transmission infrastructure is largely a political issue (planning, payment, and permitting) and that innovation has its place, whether it’s designing dynamic line ratings or power flow control.

However, building transmission lines is an absolute minefield of challenges that has stifled its expansion for decades. In 2021, researchers analyzed the strong opposition to the transmission line infrastructure and discovered that it was a diverse mix of opposition to NIMBYism (Not In My Back Yard), security concerns, and also confrontation with “wilderness conservation, alternative land uses, strong sentiment around property rights and treaty rights for indigenous… lands.”

Gates doesn’t outline exactly how he will help fix this transmission line shortage (although his organization Breakthrough Energy has funded efforts to modernize the electricity grid), but it’s clear he’s preparing for battle:

“Climate change is the most difficult problem humanity has ever faced, but I believe we have the human ingenuity to solve it. And if you care about climate change, you should care about transmission.”

Darren lives in Portland, has a cat, and writes/edits about science fiction and how our world works. You can find his previous stuff at Gizmodo and Paste if you look hard enough.

Source: www.popularmechanics.com