Do you ever feel like the thing you've been talking about for years is suddenly the thing everyone's talking about? that's me today seeing my in-box full of stories about the need to ease transmission siting if we are going to get to zero GHG electricity.
Like here. eenews.net/energywire/sto…
And here: grist.org/energy/eminent…
And here. canarymedia.com/articles/how-t…
All well worth the read. Now to why it's important. Meeting the climate goals we have to meet will require electrifying as many loads as we can that are currently fossil fueled and simultaneously decarbonizing our electric system.
Electricity generation today accounts for about 37% of our primary energy use. eia.gov/energyexplaine… 
Making any meaningful progress towards electrifying transportation and heating uses will require at least a doubling of US generation capacity. Likely more once lower capacity factors of intermittent renewable generation are taken into account.
That's a huge investment opportunity that will lower the cost of energy as we transition from high marginal cost assets to zero marginal cost clean generation. BUT...
If we are building new generation in new places AND electrifying loads in places that didn't previously use electricity, we're going to have to build out a lot of wires to connect them.
And transmission has historically been notoriously difficult to permit. As a friend working on underground HVDC told me "this is twice as expensive as overhead... but that's like being twice as expensive as a unicorn because no one is getting the cheaper stuff permitted"
The efforts by the Biden administration to simplify transmission permitting are not only important but mission-critical.
And why I've been pushing this effort with @MartinHeinrich to simplify and accelerate transmission planning. casten.house.gov/media/press-re…
Anyway, I'm delighted to see this issue getting the overdue attention it deserves. /fin
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