mdsolar's Journal: Cathedral Thinking

What I would post as a comment on FERC Docket No. RM21-17 if their ecomment site worked.

A difference between wind and solar energy and other energy sources is they last essentially forever. Obviously, equipment needs maintaining and replacement from time to time but we expect the wind to blow and the sun to shine over the next two billion years that the Earth remains habitable.

The same might be said of precipitation and river flow but climate change is affecting some of our largest reservoirs and there are ecological reasons to limit the lifetimes of some dams. Rivers change course and silt fill reservoirs so there is a temporary aspect to hydro renewable energy in many cases.

Depletable energy sources such as fossil fuels and fission are entirely ephemeral even from an historical perspective much less on geological timescales.

It is the eternal aspect of wind and solar that I wish the Commission to consider during its rule making deliberations.

Just as a country path may become a Roman road that transports grain (a solar energy derivative) to this day, you may use typical above ground transmission to connect New Mexican Solar or Kansas Wind with population centers. But those will be country paths that later generations will upgrade to more durable and reliable buried transmission. You will have done your jobs for today.

And, were you arranging transmission for a coal or gas plant, you would have done your jobs for all time since the plant would not outlive the transmission towers or wires. The fuel would run out first.

However, civilization has another mode of building, specifically in response to the eternal, where duration and magnificence are given great emphasis. Cathedrals are built with the eternal in mind and I suggest that you should take Cathedral Thinking into account in your deliberations.

Are there ways to make transmission so durable that it will last as long as the population centers it supplies? It is a reversal of matching the transmission durability to the power source's durability and instead matching it to the settledness of demand. Roman aqueducts served (and still serve) a city of stone, the Eternal City. Ask yourselves what are you transmitting to?

Subterranean and submarine transmission have already found some favor among transmission developers because they are easier on the viewscape and are thus easier to permit. But they are also less exposed to the destructive aspects of weather such as ice storm, tornado and lightning that interfere with aboveground transmission. They have enhanced reliability on this account. They are also built to be fundamentally durable to avoid future maintenance or replacement.

As you deliberate, I hope you will consider the eternal aspect of wind and solar power and contemplate how transmission should (and obviously eventually will) match that unique aspect of the energy sources. Can you, for example, find a way to acknowledge the lower long term cost of buried transmission so long as it is used for its full lifespan and the manner in which wind and solar support that very long term use?

I think durability and reliability should be the watchwords though rapidity is also needed. Perhaps temporary transmission by battery on rail cars could support the build time requirements of subterranean transmission. That could be a kickstart to a storage build out as well.