“Perhaps the single greatest risk to a successful energy transition during the 2020s is the risk that the nation fails to site, modernize, and build out the electrical grid.” That is a conclusion of a major National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report released last Friday (Oct. 19). The report added, “Except where new transmission has been shown as needed to keep the lights on, adding transmission is complicated by the need to secure cooperation from numerous individual landowners and affected publics—many of whom may perceive greater cost than benefit from high voltage transmission lines.”
The report is the second of two reports in a series – “Accelerating Decarbonization of the U.S. Energy System” — examining the U.S. goals of a “net-zero” society by 2050. The first report, according to the NAS, looked at “technical and federal policy blueprint for the next 10 years, and its recommendations helped shape climate policies included in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021, CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, and Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.”
The latest report, said the NAS, “focuses on gaps and barriers to implementation of net-zero policies, emphasizing the need for a strong social contract during the decades-long transition.” The gaps and barriers the NAS committee identified include “energy justice and equity, public health, the workforce, public engagement, clean electricity, the built environment, land use, transportation, industrial decarbonization, the financial sector, the future of fossil fuels, and state and local government roles.” It includes over 80 recommendations targeting private and public sector actions.
The starkest barrier the report identifies is high-voltage electric transmission. As Rob Gramlich, president of consulting firm Grid Strategies LLC, put it, “No transmission, no transition.”