能源危机的关键在于罗恩白人笑话

能源转变是一件事。它应该是，因为环保主义者正在获胜：截至2020年，可再生能源占美国发电的20％。

最重要的兴奋有很多值得可再生能源的进展，但尽管放弃了石油和天然气的普及，但在风和太阳能如上替代化石燃料，将在清洁源等十年。我们无法翻转开关并具有清洁的能量。新技术需要规模和存储，只能在基础架构建立外面快速增长。

电力部门的充分脱碳是对巴黎协议中概述的全球气候缓解努力，乔·拜登总统在办公室的第一天签署。不幸的是，通过观察熟悉的成本指标，能量替代品并不像一个人想要的那样直截了当。生产边缘成本正在趋向于电网平价，但简单的成本比较并不容易，非常准确或可靠。首先，在独立模式下操作的比较技术是荒谬的，因为它们必须组合操作。更重要的是，没有人有任何真实的天然气价格 - 或价格任何事物— will be in the future.

没有模特是完美的

这些数字甚至没有重要，因为将U.S.能量供应转换为100％可再生动力源，这对于接下来的几个不可行decades。不，这不是因为太阳能电池板在太阳不闪亮时不会产生能量。并且它不是因为涡轮机不会产生时，风不会产生。喜剧演员Ron White的最佳素描是关于一个忽视飓风警告和绑在树上的人，因为他认为他有足够的身体状况来承受飓风风。白色观察扭曲，“不是那风在吹。它的什么风在吹。如果你用沃尔沃被击中，那么你早上有多少仰卧起坐了！“

Similarly, the obsession with the relative costs of alternative energy sources completely misses the point.

For the U.S. to begin producing more renewable energy, the renewable energy that’s generated must have somewhere to go. Today, that can’t happen because there isn’t one unified U.S. grid. Even if it started raining windmills and solar panels, we couldn’t do much with them because our grid is in the way. There is a nearly impermeable electrical seam that divides America’s power grids. The current grid is divided into three major parts: The Eastern Interconnection, the Western Interconnection, and Texas (which has its own separate grid because it isn’t真的part of the U.S.). While all three of these grids are connected, they operate almost entirely independently of one another, with little ability for one to send excess electricity to help meet the demands of another. In fact, they barely interact at all — exchanging approximately十分之一的1％他们的力量。

这就是该国两个最大的州 - 加利福尼亚州和德克萨斯州的原因 - 当有热浪或冬季寒扣时，不能保持灯光。虽然他们的政治领导人浪费时间交易倒钩，但两者都间歇性地“无法表现甚至表现出文明的基本功能”，因为在最近的加州热浪期间参议员Ted Cruz突出了鸣叫。没有这种情况都不会发生。统一的网格将解决了今天的问题。

目前的电网是在19世纪的范式范围内建造的，专为气体照明而设计。它是一种单向模型，其中在集中站点生成电源，并通过分销线发送到最终用户。但可再生能源发电设施 - 特别是大型太阳能和风电场 - 更广泛分布。并不同样：十五个州占美国风能潜力的87％，大多数地理位置远离城市负荷中心，其中大部分国家的能量消耗。我们需要21世纪的愿景。为了解锁可再生能源的全部潜力，需要是一个可以在任何方向上传输电力的单一，大陆范围。中国得到它，欧洲得到它 - 为什么不是美国？

美国将无法甩掉化石燃料，直到它可以在国家中部地区的风力和太阳能到两个海岸的城市。你可以拥有世界上所有可再生能源，但如果你没有传输，你就没有了。

问题不是技术甚至是成本。问题是政治性。但那是另一个故事。

在许多位置的不同密度下，需要大量的风，太阳能和储存，并且传输将使能量从其产生的位置移动到它被消耗的位置至关重要。阳光可以在冬季收获，所以明尼苏达州的越来越多的小农场正在种植太阳能电池板而不是作物 - 并全年汇集电网。但是，您需要一个全国市场进行清洁能源，同样您需要国家市场的新鲜农产品，出于同样的原因：家庭蔬菜花园没有足够的规模。即使每个人都有屋顶的太阳能和车库的电池，物理学也不工作 - 它只是解决方案的一部分。单独使用软件和电池无法完成无碳电量，因为它需要疯狂的电池数量。电池是补充，而不是替代品，传输。电线更便宜。

传动文艺复兴时期

Building national-scale transmission is not a new idea. Nearly 100 years ago, a Chicago newspaper trumpeted the value of a truly interconnected grid. A unified grid makes sense whether the energy source is all coal, all gas, all nuclear — or a mix of anything. Maybe hydrogen will be a savior energy source; maybe it won’t. Either way, it will require a smart, continental-scale, 21st century grid that can spread it around and balance the flow of power more efficiently.

There have been dramatic improvements in the cost-competitiveness of wind and solar, but timing is everything because cross-seam transmission has a substantial impact on the location, size, and type of wind and solar that can be developed in each region. Solar farms are a third more powerful today compared to 2016. Wind currently generates more than 7 percent of the nation’s electricity, and it will only keep rising. Giant wind turbines generate about twice as much energy as smaller ones, and the next generation will be taller than any building on the mainland of Western Europe. The metric everyone in the industry fawns over is the levelized cost of energy (LCOE). It’s the amount of energy generated divided by the cost of building and operating the plant. In English, that means it’s cheaper to build new renewables than to keep the old crap we have.

The cost to produce wind and solar has declined by 70 percent and 90 percent, respectively, over the past decade. Solar and onshore wind are now the cheapest sources of new-build generation for at least two-thirds of the globe, and there are plenty of innovations in the pipeline that will drive down costs further. So there is a path to zero-carbon electricity.

国际能源机构最近宣布了太阳能的力量，是世界各地的最便宜的电力形式，在最佳地点太阳能是“最便宜的电力来源”。与化石燃料不同，随着我们从地面拉更多的贵重，可再生能源随着我们制作的更多而变得更便宜，但它没有在足够快的任何地方部署，因为美国传输网格不足。我们今天所拥有的网格是拥挤和旧的。在许多地方，您无法将更多的电子泵​​放到电网上，因为它会过载系统。美国的大多数传输和分销线在20世纪50年代建造，并拥有50年的预期寿命。可能已经开始在加州历史上最致命的野火的破碎，百年历史悠久的野火在第二次世界大战结束时购买了56美分。网格升级需要加倍或三倍的大小和规模nation’s transmission system, and until the grid is connected we are going to have to keep burning coal and natural gas — and lots of it — for decades to come.

返回美国的竞争力

传播我的杆ncreasing production of electricity from the sun and wind, but we take infrastructure for granted. The grid is collapsing because it’s boring to people. Nobody gets too excited about high-voltage transmission lines because they’re ugly. They’re tall and they emit a penetrating, incessant buzz. But the U.S. needs more because the places where the sun shines brightest and the wind blows hardest aren’t where most people live — and there is essentially no storage of electricity on the grid. To bring the energy from areas of the U.S. where power is produced cheaply and with few environmental impacts to the people requires a strong transmission network. Since the sun shines and the wind blows at different times of the day in different parts of the country, long-distance transmission reduces the impact of the variability of wind and solar. It can address over-generation issues and increases the reliability of the electrical grid.

Of the new energy capacity added to the electrical grid last year, 78 percent came from renewable sources. Wall Street can’t throw enough money at wind turbines, solar panels, and batteries, but transmission and substations — not so much. The technology is on the shelf; it hasn’t changed in decades. We know how to hang wires and ship power hundreds of miles. The grid is what Tesla invented — Nikola, not Elon. It’s not complicated; no magic technofix is needed. Upgrading the bulk power transmission network would create millions of new, local, and non-exportable jobs, but the stuff people get really excited about in 2021 involves door-to-door food delivery, e-commerce, robots, cloud-to-edge integration, or artificial intelligence.

Overlooked is the fact that Industry 4.0 and the “digitization of everything” require electricity, making it one of the economy’s most important costs. Businesses moved offshore in the 1980s because human costs were lower; those firms can come back because those costs are less important today. Data centers want to go to the places with the lowest energy costs. Similar to how the interstate highway system drove down business costs across the country, low-cost electricity will enable America’s prosperity and power economic growth. It’s fast becoming the input of greatest importance to North American competitiveness.

运输现在占美国温室气体排放量的三分之一，每位车手都有电动车在市场上或管道。2019年，特斯拉模型3是荷兰畅销的汽车。不是畅销的电动汽车，这是畅销汽车。完全停止。电动汽车即将到来，快速即将到来，但社会不会注册电动汽车的全部潜力，因为清洁的运输和清洁能源不同的是，我们的绝大多数电力仍来自化石燃料。电动汽车不会燃烧汽油，但这并不会使它们“清洁”运输。在西弗吉尼亚，怀俄明州，密苏里州，肯塔基州，印第安纳州，犹他州，北达科他州，内布拉斯加州，俄亥俄州，威斯康星州，新墨西哥州或科罗拉多州的特斯拉是一个煤电car. These states generate more than 50 percent of their electric power from coal, and Montana — at 49 percent — just missed the cut. Greener electricity lifts all boats and the grid is getting cleaner over time, but it’s still not at zero emissions. If every American switched to an electric car, the country’s electricity use would go up by 25 percent.

虚拟存储

最雄心勃勃地对清洁能源的解释，不仅仅是简单地脱碳电力系统;真正的目标是净零经济性。为了避免灾难性气候变化的可能性，我们必须停止燃烧的东西;这意味着转换我们所有的运输，住宅，商业和工业系统，因此它们仅用于电力，大部分新引起的果汁来自风力涡轮机和太阳能电池板的海洋。“网上的一切”和“电气化的一切”是绿色的咒语，但实现这将需要美国电力生产增加三倍。为了满足各种各样的能源来源，如风和太阳能，你必须做两件事：过度济会容量和连接所有接缝。

也许更重要的是多少将消耗电力是问题什么时候it will be consumed. With a macro grid, power can flow to the eastern U.S. when demand peaks there on weekday mornings, then shift westward as the day goes on. Meeting demand like this reduces the need for constructing new generating plants or adding battery packs; grid planners call this virtual storage. Sunny regions that produce solar power during the day swap with regions that produce wind power at night.

为确保美国最能满足其可再生能源潜力，我们的电网技术必须升级和扩展。迄今为止，此类规划在公开对话和政府政策中突出突出突出。然而，在开始建造传输线的时间范围内的时间框架大约是十年。谷歌，Facebook和亚马逊在美国技术巨头的离合器中是值得注意的，这引发了绿色能源的公司采购，但他们没有投资电网。利用当前蒸发的电网和传动系统，U.S.是方式，在其同行后面的方式在开发更互连的下一代电网，能够从一个远处地理区域移动到另一个电力。通过实现更高级别的分散可再生能力，现代化的气候抗性基​​础设施将有助于美国与已经建造高压，长距离线的国家进行国际竞争。

在各个大陆的各个洲的兴趣在全球范围内成长，因为对共享双向动力流动的高经济价值有很强的欣赏。2020年，首次，可再生能源在欧洲联盟的化石燃料中产生更多的电力。

在过去的二十年中，德国花了很多钱来加速其超级雄心勃勃，以中心为中心的能力转换计划，Energiewende.。目标从2%的可再生能源of all German electricity to nearly 40 percent, it is by far the most aggressive renewable push in the world. And the U.K., a leader in offshore wind, in 2019 generated over 40 percent of its power with wind and only 2 percent with coal. To replace big coal with thousands of smaller wind and solar units, Europe has been connecting its grids. On December 8, 2020, NordLink — the massive “Green Cable” — was energized, creating, for the first time, an interconnection between Norway and Germany. The soon-to-be-energized IFA-2 will connect the U.K. grid with France’s power grid by year’s end. Europe is well on the way toward the creation of a supergrid interconnecting the whole of Europe and neighboring countries and linking the rich wind resource of the North Sea with the solar resources in northern Africa, Italy, and Spain.

然而，欧洲不是真正的威胁。讨厌的国家以字母“C”开头。中国最近从欧洲完成了比欧洲更多的高压区间传输，超过80倍超过美国，中国计划在未来五年内投资超过9000亿美元，以进一步发展其电网。

A Green Electric Backbone

Updating the grid is going to be expensive: at least $150 billion of investment and probably closer to $200 billion. That’s a lot of coin, but here’s the good news: These investments will earn 9 to 11 percent because that’s the regulated return on transmission assets. This is what’s allowed under the regulatory compact that was first laid out in theBinghamton Bridge.最高法院1865年因为传输a natural monopoly. This isn’t like the deregulated power generation market; there’s actual competition there so independent power producers like Calpine Corp. can — and do — go bankrupt. Investors can lose everything. Not here — these returns are保证。

The formula is pretty simple. I won’t bother to explain it:

总收入要求=率基本×允许率返回+费用

希望和祈祷交易

机会是巨大的，因为我们都有同样的问题，无论是养老金基金或退休人士的城市，管理401（k）。每个人都在问：“我们在哪里拿钱，赚取产量，而不是在结构上丢失？”虽然廉价借款成本是企业美国的福音，但养老金经理，捐赠和保险公司认为，需要产生与长期义务的回报。由于债务评分为或以上支付5％实际上消失，机构参与者在杠杆收购和垃圾评级公司担任贷方的贷方弯曲了银行 - 通常接受一些保障措施贷款。由绝望地搜索退货时，资产业主正在向风中致以谨慎，并将更深层次的债务推动，并逐步跨越资产课程的更复杂的投资，包括房地产，基础设施，私募股权和信贷，以努力回归果汁回报。为什么？

Biden just unlocked private investment in the grid. It is the most fundamental infrastructure there is — a giant power cord that connects supply with demand. These are valuable assets so the private sector should be lining up to invest. David Swensen made his reputation by championing investment in novel asset classes, and this one is sitting right in front of us: X marks the spot. Pensions and large companies like Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Amazon are sitting on mountains of cash that should be jonesing for private finance initiative projects to build transmission for the federal government, give operational control to a regional transmission organization, and receive the approved return from ratepayers. Do more than consume the power — bank the returns!

这对养老金有好处，对就业有益，它对地球有好处;这是双赢。赢得立方！

Woopy Pinkheel Turbines是一个麻烦，最大的宜家家具装配项目有史以来见面 - 只需购买连接它们的丑陋塔楼。美国土木工程师协会给予了能源基础设施A D +和估计的天气和年龄相关的中断，使美国经济成为一个数字，其中一个数字以“T”开头。有没有人认为没有提高电力交付系统的恢复力，可靠性和安全性是一个好主意？

Tearing Pages From an Old Playbook

We can do this. America is at its best when backed up against the ropes. We put a man on the moon in under ten years back in the ’60s. In fact, the grid’s greatest leaps forward took place when the federal government instructed regional utilities to interconnect during World War II to ensure a steady flow to Automation Alley to build tanks and planes. Another leap took place during the Cold War and the space race when the government directed utilities to send excess power from huge hydro dams in the Pacific Northwest to Southern California via the 846-mile, 3,100-megawatt Pacific DC Intertie (which was a fan-flipping-tastic investment for the Bonneville Power Administration and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power).

归零碳排放的最终解决方案将采取全面的方法在我们所有资产中平衡。关键在一起。美国需要国家电力政策。区域间传输是一份从未明确分配给联邦能源监管委员会，能源部或任何其他实体的工作，所以网格受到各种决策者的影响，包括200多名投资者拥有的公用事业，十大联邦权力当局，超过2,000名公用事业公司，约有900个农村电力合作社，七个区域传播组织，48个国家监管机构和许多州和联邦机构。德克萨斯州想要创建电岛的原因是可以理解的，但电动的埃尔科特很短ReliabilityCouncil of Texas. Don’t laugh; it takes away from the message. Energy from neighboring states could have helped Texans survive their extreme winter storm.

多种疫苗的快速发展和部署周期，以回应Covid-19大流行表明，当专家设定他们的思想来实现共同目标时，有能力的科学能够。Pandemics对世界健康和经济构成了重大而立即威胁 - 但是全球变暖也是如此。拥抱新一代电气化技术，由可再生能源提供动力，将有助于我们脱碳的经济。我们可以快速做到这一点：2020教会我们在遇到前所未有的危机时可以立即采取行动。

如果你想拯救地球，你想快速做到这一点，你今天可以做出的最大贡献并不耗尽并购买特斯拉;它可以送罗恩白的妙语。

如果我们修复电网，可再生未来的100％可再生未来的路线图 - 没有人甚至谈论它。

网格是沃尔沃。

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亚伦绽放works for an energy developer and is on the board of Energy Systems Integration Group, a nonprofit educational organization whose mission is to chart the future of grid transformation and energy systems integration. Its latest thinking can be found这里。

理查德威根是曹宪章。曹联届协会是替代行业的专业机构，具有改善投资者的投资和社会成果。