Snip

It's one thing to try and replace fossil fuels with wind and solar power, but experts are saying the generation of power is only half the battle, and that the problems in getting that power to Americans may be insurmountable.

A new report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) concludes that the size of the global electricity grid will need to double by 2040, in order to reach global emission reductions targets in line with the Paris Agreement.

That means, the IEA says, the world will need to refurbish or add 50 million miles of new transmission lines within 17 years — the equivalent of circling the equator more than 2,000 times.

The IEA estimates that global investments in transmission capacity will need to double to $600 billion per year by 2030 in order to reach that goal.

Energy expert, podcaster, and author Robert Bryce told Just The News the agency’s estimates suggest enormous challenges ahead to reach the goals they are proposing. “It’s easy to talk about building transmission, but it's incredibly hard to do,” Bryce said.

As mining expert and Utah-based lawyer B.F. Randall explains, electricity has a property that makes it more of a service than a commodity. It has to be produced almost the moment it's consumed.

Wind and solar provide energy intermittently, according to when the wind is blowing or the sun is shining, which may or may not align with demand.

Solar production, for example, diminishes in the evening when demand starts to climb, which is why the operators of the Texas grid this summer requested people conserve during those hours. Wind energy typically fails at the same time.

While some storage systems, such as batteries and pumped storage, can store energy for later use, they are very expensive, especially when bridging long durations when wind or solar energy may not be available.

The idea of renewable energy may be good, but the execution is problematic. In order to run the grid reliably with many wind and solar farms, it has to be able to transfer electricity from wherever it’s produced at any given moment to wherever it's needed. That means a lot of transmission lines.