Boom in wind and solar power requires new lines that can pit environmentalist vs. environmentalist

An old source of controversy in rural areas, high-voltage power lines, has a new impetus: the need to run lines from major electric-consuming areas to the usually remote and less populated areas that are sources of wind and solar power.

"There are tens of thousands of miles of new transmission lines planned or under construction, most traversing ranch and farm land," Co-Editor Bill Bishop writes on the Daily Yonder. "Some estimate that the country will spend up to $200 billion dollars building out a new electric grid. Most of that money will be spent in rural America, as new transmission lines are strung to connect the wind turbines on the Plains to the cities." (Photo: John Curley via the Yonder)

Bishop reports that rural residents are turning out for meetings to voice concern about projects in Texas, Northern California, Southern California and New York. "The oldest story in the country is that rural America pays the largest price for producing the power used in the cities," he writes. "But the massive investment in transmission lines now underway is immensely complicated. The construction of new lines and the lease payments they bring will benefit some rural residents, while others see it as unmitigated destruction. Landowner is pitted again landowner, environmentalist against environmentalist and region against region." The story has lots of information and many links. Read it here.