An energy high-wire act

Re “They call it green power’s evil twin,” Dec. 18

Your article captured precisely the difficulty in expanding transmission lines for renewable energy.

Voters, lawmakers and environmentalists have been eager to set renewable energy mandates in California, but these feel-good factions falter as soon as transmission lines become involved or a company plans wind turbines within someone’s view.

Unfortunately, there are problems with every way we generate electrons -- even the clean ones. But the solution is hardly in plastering every roof with expensive solar photo-voltaics, as one environmentalist suggested.

The only way California will come close to meeting its current requirement that utilities source 20% of their power by 2010 is through harnessing the economies of scale of big wind farms, solar thermal plants and geothermal plants located many miles away.

California utilities have slipped toward meeting the 2010 deadline largely because transmission constraints have kept renewable energy deployments low. I never would have expected myself to be at odds with environmentalists, but this is the result of the green hypocrisy of our day.

Jesse Broehl

Los Angeles

The writer is U.S. editor for Windpower Monthly magazine.