Quote:
Originally Posted by Wes Tausend
On a different note, it still makes sense to me that America could benefit from sending the energy, contained in coal, cross-country by a new investment in interstate powerlines, perhaps along rail corridors.
Wes
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Thanks for a very gracious post, Wes! I appreciate it.
I agree with your assessment on the need for more transmission lines. The major hurdle is mostly the environmentalists. A few years ago, I happened to be talking with a representative of a power company from Indiana, and he told me that they are not attempting to expand these anymore, because it costs too much and takes too much time. The most recent one they built took something like 15 years to get built from start to finish, mostly due to legal wrangling from those opposing its installation. that makes it really hard for them, and we all pay the price in the end. Think rolling blackouts in California. Abundant power is cheap power...
While we are at it. we should put rails through many of the interstate corridors, as well. I think I recall hearing that rail is 3 or so times more efficient as trucking (you can fill in the correct value here)... where are the environmentalists on this obvious oversight? We would get the side benefit of reducing traffic on the roadways... a plus for every Cobra owner in the country
!