Finding A New Use For An Old Transmission Line

What happens when the generation source for a dedicated DC transmission line stops generating?  That's the question now being argued in North Dakota in anticipation of the closure of the Coal Creek Station in Underwood.

Some want to re-purpose the recently updated line to become a pipeline to send remote wind power east to the Twin Cities.  Others think that the line should be retired along with the coal-fired power plant.

Ladd Erickson, the state's attorney for McLean County who wrote the amendment, considers the transmission line an extension of the Coal Creek Station, for which it was built. If the plant goes, so should the line, he said.
"That line does not have economic value to North Dakota if it doesn't carry lignite energy," he said.

Any readers recognizing this transmission line yet?  It's infamous CU transmission line memorialized by the late Sen. Paul Wellstone's book, "Powerline: The First Battle of America's Energy War."  If you haven't read this book, you should.  It chronicles the struggle of affected landowners who opposed the construction of a transmission line that didn't provide any benefit to them across their farms, using eminent domain.  It's the original transmission opposition wildfire.   Sadly, despite years of public outrage, and a nasty infestation of bolt weevils, the project was ultimately built.

It was a one-way highway from the coal plant to the Twin Cities.  Its sole purpose was to move electricity from Point A to Point B.  It didn't connect with any other transmission lines along the way.  It wasn't part of the connected electric grid.  And now that the generator fueling it has fallen from favor, the transmission line itself has no job to do.  It's useless.

This is a glimpse into our future if the plan to build a "national grid" of DC transmission lines to ship wind and solar around the country comes to fruition.  A transmission line for the sole purpose of serving one kind of generator becomes completely useless when that source of generation is abandoned.  Remote wind and solar, although supported by many today, is not a "forever" generation resource.  Turbines wear out after only 10 years and must be "repowered" using our tax dollars.  Solar projects as well.  The only thing "renewable" about them is that they must be updated and replaced with alarming frequency.  A transmission line, on the other hand, has a life of 40 years, at minimum.  Some have been in service much longer. 

If we build a huge network of transmission lines for "renewables" that soon become obsolete, will our investment be lost?

And speaking of lost investments...

HVDC technology is at the heart of a vision for a "super-grid" of long-haul transmission that could connect the best sources of wind and solar energy with big cities where most of the electricity demand is.
Siting long-haul transmission lines, however, is fraught with challenges. A Houston company, Clean Line Energy Partners, and its founder, Michael Skelly, tried for a decade to develop several HVDC lines to enable more renewable energy only to run into a buzz saw of opposition.
At the core of those siting challenges is opposition by rural landowners and politicians who say property rights and well-being are being sacrificed for others' benefit.

What happens when new generation sources are developed that don't have to be sited in rural areas?  Yes, they are coming, probably sooner than you think!  If a truly renewable source of electricity that can be built right at load is developed before the "super grid" is fully depreciated, we're going to have one heck of a white elephant on our hands, and in our wallets.

More innovation, less reliance on the status quo.  But then again, that doesn't make the companies that build transmission and remote renewbles any richer...