The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 16 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Reed: External Transmission Can Support Under 1% of ERCOT Load
“And then ERCOT is incredibly isolated. So there's one or two ERCOT has some minimal Back to back and some minimal AC at sort of very low voltage, but incredibly isolated. I think less than one percent of their load or something is available via transmission. C…”
Reed: Non-ERCOT Texas avoided prolonged blackouts through grid interconnections
“And even the parts of Texas that were not run by ERCOT, especially, right, were experiencing this extreme weather, but did not have this massive multi-day blackout problem. Because they had so much more power available and were able to share it.”
Reed: Decarbonizing the grid requires at least doubling transmission capacity
“The scale that we need to decarbonize the electricity system means we need to get twice as much transmission capacity or more. In the coming decades.”
Reed: Underground HVDC may cost only 1x to 2x of overhead lines
“There's some estimates out there that you might actually be closer to parity as opposed to the sort of five to 10 X that's normally cited. It could be closer to one to two X if you think about power over distance. So mile by mile you're more expensive, but gig…”
Reed: Reconductoring with composite core lines can double grid capacity
“It's a lot faster to add capacity to the grid by just taking out old steel reinforced lines and replacing them with composite reinforced lines. You can get multiple times the capacity. I think two X is the number that I hear most hear quoted the most.”
Reed: Utility regulations incentivize building new transmission over maximizing existing systems
“You can get a rate of return on new capital expenditures, which is new transmission lines, but you don't get that same benefit as an investor-owned utility for just maximizing what you already have in your system, right? In most places, right?”
Reed: Federal backstop authority for transmission line siting has never been used
“Transmission has always been permitted exclusively at the state level. There's been some very, very narrow federal authority established for it, but it's kind of this multi-step, elaborate process. There's a study, and then someone else has to review it, and t…”
Reed: US Interregional Grid Interconnections Have Stagnated Despite Energy Growth
“In fact, we recently did a data analysis to show sort of how the grids are interconnected and illustrate that compared to the amount of energy that the grids are using, these interconnects are just incredibly small, right? They really haven't grown over time.”
Reed: Over one terawatt of US generation is stuck in interconnection queues
“There's more than, I want to say there's more than a terawatt of energy generation in these queues across the United States that aren't able to come online because we don't have the necessary transmission to support them.”
Reed: US has 400,000 transmission miles, but only 25% are high-voltage
“So we've got about 400,000, just over 400,000 miles of transmission lines in our, in this country, and most of them are lower voltage, so they're still, like, fairly local in terms of how far they can move power. I think it's two-thirds of them. Actually three…”
Reed: China Built Massive Multi-Hundred-Mile DC Transmission Grid
“China had a massive build out of transmission. Going back to technology, most of our grid, almost all of our grid is alternating current. That's the AC I was referring to. And most grids around the world are AC. China did a massive DC build out over the past c…”
Reed: US grid interconnection wait times now reach four years or longer
“And so those queues, you know, were, used to be a couple of years, and now are two, are four years or longer, just to get out of the queue.”
Reed: Underground AC transmission is physically limited to 40-100 miles
“Undergrounding AC is actually incredibly difficult. You can only go 40 to a hundred miles, kind of depending on how much, how you design the system and how you want to control it, because the ground itself, like, actually creates Stability issues for moving AC…”
Reed: Superconductors allow high-capacity transmission on much shorter towers
“So the benefit of a high temperature superconductor is you can jack up that current without having to jack up the voltage, and you can still get a lot of power. The reason this matters is that voltage is what determines the height of those towers.”
Reed: FERC has held federal gas pipeline siting authority for over 80 years
“For natural gas infrastructure in the U.S., that happens at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. They've had this authority for more than 80 years that pipelines used in interstate commerce are cited at the federal level”