Despite Obama's Support, Projects Tripped Up by Financing, Logistics
"The national electricity grid is "the biggest, most complex machine on Earth," said Amory B. Lovins, chief executive of the Rocky Mountain Institute. It is also antiquated and largely unable to connect with places where renewable power supplies are plentiful...Yet the $2 billion in the stimulus package devoted to transmission lines is a tiny part of what's needed. "I see it as seed money," said Jon Wellinghoff, acting chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. "We need $100 billion to $200 billion worth of investment, and I believe we'll see that money coming from the private sector," he said, though current credit conditions make that difficult.There are other hurdles besides financing, including multiple steps of permitting, as well as logistics and opposition to the transmission lines that would crisscross slabs of unspoiled landscape...
