Driving through western Kansas, you’ll see hundreds of whirling wind turbines. But you won’t see lots of people — or high-voltage power lines.
And that is the big obstacle to realizing the wind-energy potential of Kansas and the Midwest: You can put up all the towers and turbines you like, but without more transmission lines, the added electricity won’t get to the cities that could use it.
Those lines will take years to build and cost tens of billions of dollars — if they are built at all.
“It’s a showstopper for renewable development,” said Ralph Cavanaugh, co-director of the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group with 1.3 million members.
The national power grid is a mishmash because much of it was built to serve utilities’ individual territories. That left the country with high-powered lines serving big populations in the East and West — but not connected to the windy corridor from the Dakotas to Texas. FULL STORY
