Report Details Jobs Benefits of Utility Transmission Overhaul
May 20, 2011
A group focused on the reliability of our nation’s electricity infrastructure has released a new report estimating that expanding transmission capacity to carry renewable energy across regions of North America will create 130,000 to 250,000 full-time U.S. jobs and 20,000 to 50,000 in Canada annually.
In a press release, the Working group for Investment in Reliable and Economic Electric Systems (WIRES), comprised of large utilities like Duke Power and solar and wind providers, states:
Forty percent of all energy consumed in the United States is in the form of electricity. Today’s economy arguably depends more heavily on electric power than on oil and that trend would clearly accelerate if we electrify our transportation sector.
An article in the July, 2010 issue of National Geographic says:
We are creatures of the grid. We are embedded in it and empowered by it. The sun used to govern our lives, but now, thanks to the grid, darkness falls at our convenience. During the Depression, when power lines first electrified America, a farmer in Tennessee rose in church on Sunday and said…’The greatest thing on earth is to have the love of God in your heart, and the next greatest thing is to have electricity in your house.’ He was talking about a few light bulbs and maybe a radio. He had no idea. Juice from the grid now penetrates every corner of our lives, and we pay no more attention to it than to the oxygen in the air.
“To that,” says the release, “we add only three words—jobs, jobs, jobs!”
WIRES argues for more federal regulatory support for modernizing the electrical grid. One of the barriers to development is state-by-state regulation that can stymie regional transmission upgrades when individual states object to new facilities due to visibility and environmental impacts. The group, composed of representatives from several electric utilities, says:
We are not looking to government to do anything but take a fresh look at how the grid is planned, permitted, and paid for today under procedures that pre-date the emergence of modern electric generation technology and regional power markets.
Read the WIRES report.
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