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Undermining Our Climate Policies
Transmission

It is argued that new transmission must be built to accommodate renewable energy in to our nation’s energy grid. The problem is that this creates the serious risk that new transmission lines will enable large amounts of dirty coal-fired power, at a scale that could seriously undermine climate change policies and programs. In the mid-Atlantic, this issue is grave enough to undercut the important advances that the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative would otherwise achieve.

The same transmission lines across Pennsylvania once proposed as ‘superhighways for coal’ were later repurposed for Green Wires talking points. But we have not yet put in to place the accompanying policies to ensure that these lines would not exacerbate greenhouse gas emissions.

It is argued that new transmission must be built to accommodate renewable energy in to our nation’s energy grid. The problem is that this creates the serious risk that new transmission lines will enable large amounts of dirty coal-fired power, at a scale that could seriously undermine climate change policies and programs. In the mid-Atlantic, this issue is grave enough to undercut the important advances that the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative would otherwise achieve. The same transmission lines across Pennsylvania once proposed as ‘superhighways for coal’ were later repurposed for Green Wires talking points. But we have not yet put in to place the accompanying policies to ensure that these lines would not exacerbate greenhouse gas emissions. Piedmont Environmental Council: Would Transmission Lines > The Essential Link Between Climate Policy and Transmission Policy >> Energy and Climate Bills Reshaping Transmission Policy >> PALTA's Position, Papers & Articles" width="400" height="300" /> It is argued that new transmission must be built to accommodate renewable energy in to our nation’s energy grid. The problem is that this creates the serious risk that new transmission lines will enable large amounts of dirty coal-fired power, at a scale that could seriously undermine climate change policies and programs. In the mid-Atlantic, this issue is grave enough to undercut the important advances that the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative would otherwise achieve. The same transmission lines across Pennsylvania once proposed as ‘superhighways for coal’ were later repurposed for Green Wires talking points. But we have not yet put in to place the accompanying policies to ensure that these lines would not exacerbate greenhouse gas emissions. Piedmont Environmental Council: Would Transmission Lines > The Essential Link Between Climate Policy and Transmission Policy >> Energy and Climate Bills Reshaping Transmission Policy >> PALTA's Position, Papers & Articles" width="400" height="293" />

Piedmont Environmental Council: Would Transmission Lines "for wind" energy be used for coal instead?

More information on these subjects can be found in these resources.

Importing Pollution, Coal’s Threat to Climate Policy in the U.S. Northeast
http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/technology_and_impacts/impacts/importing-pollution.html


Increased Emissions from Increased Transmission, Another Inconvenient Truth
http://conserveland.org/pp/Transmission/InconvenientTruth.pdf

The Unintended Consequences of ‘Renewable’ Transmission
http://conserveland.org/pp/Transmission/consequences09mar9.pdf

Transmission Superhighway on Track to Carry Cheap, Dirty Coal Power Northeast
http://solveclimate.com/blog/20090324/transmission-superhighway-track-carry-cheap-dirty-coal-power-northeast

>> The Essential Link Between Climate Policy and Transmission Policy

>> Energy and Climate Bills Reshaping Transmission Policy

>> PALTA's Position, Papers & Articles

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