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Protecting our power supply
by Stephanie Hemphill, Minnesota Public Radio
August 21, 2003

A utility company wants to build a new high-voltage transmission line between Duluth, Minnesota and Wausau, Wisconsin. The debate continues over whether that's the best way to protect the region against blackouts. (MPR file photo)

The power blackout a week ago in New York and other eastern cities left most of us feeling lucky to have our lights on. But there's that nagging question about whether such a thing could happen here. Several new tranmission lines are proposed for Minnesota and Wisconsin. Power companies say the new lines would help prevent regional breakdowns. But critics say it would be better to build small, local generators.

Duluth, Minn. — Once upon a time, every region of the country had its own power company. The local utility generated the electricity, and transmitted it from the power plant to its customers.

But manufacturers and other big users of electricity pushed the federal government to change the system. The big industries wanted cheaper electricity.

So in the mid-1990s, the federal government changed the rules. The theory was, competition would reduce prices. So now, utilities can sell electricity to other parts of the country.

That makes the long-distance transmission lines one of the most important parts of the system. But they're also extremely vulnerable.

	Power line opposition

Bruce Wollenberg heads the Center for Electric Energy at the University of Minnesota. He says all this buying and selling of electricity has created a huge strain on the transmission lines. Utilities don't make money by transporting electricity, but only by generating it.

"That is a big weakness, that there's no incentive for the transmission owners to increase the transmission capacity," Wollenberg says. "It doesn't net them that much -- if anything -- in increased profit. So they don't do anything."

Not only do they not build new lines -- critics say some don't even maintain the lines they have. As demand grows, more and more electricity flows on the same inadequate, aging transmission lines.

That's a big part of why last week's blackout was so huge.

Maripat Blankenheim is with American Transmission Company, the firm that wants to build a brand new transmission line between Duluth and Wausau. She says she and her colleagues weren't surprised at last week's blackout.

Frankly, it's surprising that it doesn't happen more often. - Maripat Blankenheim, American Transmission Company

"Frankly, it's more surprising that it doesn't happen more often," she says.

Blankenheim says electric power systems in Wisconsin and Minnesota are just as vulnerable to the failures that led to the massive blackout in the East.

"The stronger the interconnections you have -- the stronger, the better the system, and the more reliable the system, certainly the more secure the system," says Blankenheim.

But don't try to convince Mark Leibaert of that. He's been working against the proposed powerline from Duluth to Wausau. He says seeing most of the East Coast without power makes him more sure than ever that tying the whole country together in a grid is dangerous.

"If you want deregulation, and all the grids tied together through these big lines, then your electricity will depend on whether or not some operator in New York City makes the right choice on where to open and close a switch," says Leibaert.

Leibaert says it would be better to build small power plants where they're needed.

David Morris agrees. He's with the Institute for Local Self Reliance in Minneapolis, and he's written three books on the electricity system. Morris says people are reacting to last week's power outage the same way as they did to earlier massive blackouts.

"Which is, 'We need another $20 billion to build more transmission lines.' And what I say is, take that $20 billion and build on-site power plants, and you will reduce the scale of the problem," says Morris. "Blackouts are going to occur, outages are going to occur, equipment is going to fail. But you're not going to have to worry about 50 million people suffering as a result."

Morris says solar panels and fuel cells installed in homes and businesses would reduce pressure on the grid. But utility companies say those new technologies are still experimental, and too expensive to contribute any substantial amount to the electric supply.

This fall, Congress will debate a national energy policy. Some lawmakers want to streamline and simplify the process of building power lines. The federal agency that oversees the electric energy system suggets the federal government should be able to to pre-empt state authority on powerline approval and siting.

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