Future Power Infrastructure & the "Not In My Back Yard" Effect
February 28 2008 / by ts1937
Category: Energy Year: General Rating: 8
As the need to update our energy infrastructure increases, how do we deal with growing, local opposition to new projects?
How many people do you know that want a nuclear power plant in
their back yard? By definition the “Not In My Back Yard” attitude
is parochial, and at times it might seem irrational, but its is
almost always passionate and creates a huge 
political problem when trying to build and site new power
generation or transmission facilities. It’s a realistic obstacle
that we have to design around if we’re to meet the power demands of
tomorrow, whether we choose wind, solar, clean-burning or nuclear
energy.
There are two big problems that we as a country will have to face soon. First, current power generation capacity is getting tighter. To meet growing demand, while simultaneously reducing carbon emissions, new power plants must be built and older, “dirty” facilities replaced. At the same time, new transmission lines become necessary to deal with the increasing load as well as the realities of the deregulated market where electricity is moved over much greater distances than the current grid was originally designed for. In short, the energy infrastructure in our country will undergo a significant if not complete, overhaul over the next few decades. To date, most of the public discourse on these issues has centered on which technologies should or should not be used to meet those not-so-future needs.
There is one question that is not making headlines, but I think is just as critical, “Where are we going to build this new infrastructure?”
