Coal-fired electric generating plants and long-haul transmission
lines are making a comeback as California's resource planners think
long-term. But don't look for power plants or even most of the
transmission lines to be built inside the state. Instead, officials
are looking 1,000 miles east to the open spaces of Wyoming to play
host to the next generation of baseload generation.
Plans call for thousands of megawatts of coal-fired generation to
be built near the open-pit, low-sulfur coalmines in the Powder River
Basin of eastern Wyoming. Around 3,900MW of power could be exported
west to California over one or more proposed transmission lines that
would need to be built to transport the electricity.
One proposed line, dubbed Frontier, has grabbed headlines ever
since the governors of Wyoming, Utah, Nevada and California endorsed
it in early April 2005. Wyoming officials so far support efforts to
fully develop the state's coal resources and build employment in
this least-populous US state. Wyoming officials have $1-bil at their
disposal to help develop infrastructure projects within the state as
well as across the region.
Frontier is just one part of a larger transmission planning study
known as RMATS, short for
Rocky Mountain Area Transmission
Study. RMATS calls for local transmission upgrades in
Colorado, Montana, Idaho, Utah and Wyoming. It also poses the idea
of exporting 3,900MW of electricity to markets, including
California.
"We've got some live proposals out there," says
Western Interstate Energy Board
executive director Doug Larson. The Denver-based organization
advises western state governors on regional energy issues.
Utah governor Michael O. Leavitt and Wyoming governor Dave
Freudenthal launched RMATS in 2003. In a report issued in September
2004, RMATS planners raised the power export idea, based on economic
models showing that a wide discrepancy in power costs exists between
Wyoming (low cost) and California (high cost).
Planners concluded that linking the two states with transmission
lines could bring lower-cost electricity generated across the Rocky
Mountain region to California.
For the power export plan to work, however, RMATS calls for at
least two of five possible 500kV transmission lines to be built to
the West Coast, Nevada and Arizona markets. One of those lines is
Frontier. The second line, which planners say must also be built,
has yet to win endorsement.
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