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Today I saw Maddy Groot's STS talk "Decarbonization vs. Democratization? Participatory Politics and the New England Grid", which was a fascinating talk on her preliminary findings about the political framing around impediments to renewable energy transmission lines in New England.
Really interesting stuff.
Among other things, I learned that ISO New England has historically been the only body that could make decisions about our power grid, but that they have made it their practice to never implement "policy decisions" about energy sourcing or transmission.
They see their only goal as ensuring reliable energy at a reliable price, and have furthermore worked to thwart energy subsidies at the state level. It's basically a governance nightmare.
The U.S.'s Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has had to step in to try to get ISO New England to be more responsive, but they continue to drag their feet.
There have *also* been issues with locals in New Hampshire resisting long distance transmission lines being run through their towns, but the press tends to focus on that story exclusively, which is a distortion.
Groot said that what the vocal locals in New Hampshire have actually asked for is to have the lines buried and also to be compensated, which is a bit different from "we don't want the lines running through here at all," so that's interesting too.
@dynamic Burying long distance transmission lines is extremely expensive, so it may as well be "we don't want them at all" for all practical purposes.
Air is an excellent electrical insulator while also allowing efficient, free cooling, and the wires can thermally expand and contract (sag and tighten) as needed during different load conditions.
Underground, you have to do complicated stuff with oil-impregnated paper and pumps and whatnot. And that's besides the drilling/pipelaying costs.