transmission Tag

Why Renewables Will Fail, Unless…

02 Oct 2023, Posted by bdierker in All Posts, Blog Posts

“For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.” -H. L. Mencken   The popular level discussion of climate and energy policy often oversimplifies renewables to the point of parody. Many well-meaning, educated, and intelligent people believe renewables will solve global climate issues, power the…

Differences in Decarbonization

02 May 2023, Posted by bdierker in All Posts, Blog Posts

When it comes to decarbonizing the U.S. economy, one could be forgiven for thinking the answer is as simple as ramping up wind and solar. While that is an option – albeit one that on its own would take decades – a more realistic approach is to identify what the…

Decoding the Hydrogen Rainbow

31 Jan 2023, Posted by bdierker in All Posts, Blog Posts

Blue, Grey, Green – oh my! The road to the emerald city of the future seems to feature a number of alternative energy projects with varying levels of promise. Perhaps the most touted yet least utilized at scale is hydrogen. But there seem to be many variations of hydrogen comprising…

How Do Pipelines Relate to Railways and Roads?

31 Mar 2021, Posted by bdierker in All Posts, Blog Posts

The relationship between pipelines and land is a central point of discussion whenever pipelines are in the headlines. Those who oppose pipelines may argue that pipelines infringe on private land, and those in favor of pipelines may point to the legal process designed to protect private citizens’ land from being…

How Much Land is Needed to Keep America Powered?

16 Mar 2021, Posted by bdierker in All Posts, Blog Posts

  Our 3.8 million square-mile nation uses its space for a lot of purposes. About 50 percent of U.S. land is used for agriculture. Roads run for over 4 million miles across the country. Forests occupy nearly 300,000 square miles. But this vast and dynamic country requires abundant energy to…

Modern Life Is Rooted in Infrastructure

01 Mar 2021, Posted by bdierker in All Posts, Blog Posts

When you see a tree, you know it has roots. When you pull weeds, you aim to get all of those roots spread across the whole garden just beneath the ground. What you may not think of quite as intuitively is that modern infrastructure has roots too. This month, Aii…

How Close Are We to a Smart Grid?

12 Feb 2021, Posted by bdierker in All Posts, Blog Posts

The power pulsing into your home right now probably comes courtesy of an antiquated system of power plants and transmission lines thought up while horse and buggies were still common on the streets. Even with the advent of the Internet age, we largely still use this one-way power network, and…

A perfect storm for wholesale electricity prices

30 Oct 2019, Posted by bdierker in All Posts, Blog Posts

Summer temperatures and tensions were high across the state of Texas, at least for some. While every resident of the Lone Star State dealt with immense heat during August, some Texans found themselves with ludicrously high electricity bills as well. This spike in price only affected a certain sector of Texas’…

The U.S. Electric Grid: A Primer

15 Aug 2017, Posted by staff in All Posts, Blog Posts

On July 12, we published “Building a Smarter Electric Grid: How Investing in Smarter Electricity Infrastructure Will Energize America,” a white-paper focused on the opportunities presented by a “smarter” electric network and the specific investments that should be made to take full advantage of tomorrow’s energy technologies without sacrificing the…