The debate at the heart of new electricity transmission

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• 00:01

  NPR.

• 00:11

  This is the indicator from planet money.

• 00:13

  I'm Jerry woods.

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  And I'm producer Cooper Katz McKim here to talk one of my favorite topics, power.

• 00:19

  Yes, you are our resident energy expert.

• 00:22

  We're talking about electricity here, not about political power, although there will be a little bit of that.

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  There is a desperate need for new electricity transmission in the US to meet rising demand for power and to decarbonize the economy.

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  We are generating a lot of power.

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  There just isn't enough transmission infrastructure to get it where it needs to go, especially when it comes to renewables.

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  To become a net zero emissions economy by 2050, as the Biden administration wants to do, the US will need to roughly triple its existing transmission capacity.

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  But right now, we're nowhere near close to meeting that goal.

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  There are a lot of questions that need answered before transmission can get built.

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  What will permitting look like?

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  How will the costs be allocated?

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  Another one?

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  Who will build it?

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  That last question, who is surprisingly divisive.

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  And there's basically two options here.

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  You've got one where the utilities who are already there getting the new projects by default, or you could allow an outside developer in who can win the bid.

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  And these represent two distinct perspectives, whether we should use a monopoly or a competitive model to develop new transmission.

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