My first job, in high school, was writing software for the entity that controls the power grid in the Northwest. It was an amazing learning experience. We were computerizing the grid, and I got to work with some top-notch programmers. But when I would tell people about my job, I’d often get blank stares. The power grid just wasn’t something many people thought about back then.高中时期，迎来了我的第一份工作，为控制西北地区电网的实体编写软件。这是一次很棒的学习经历。那时我们致力于将电网计算机化，我能够与一些顶尖的程序员一起工作。但当我试图向别人解释我的工作时，我得到的反馈通常是一脸茫然。电网在当时对很多人来说是个新鲜事物。
That’s no longer the case these days. Extreme weather events have made a lot more people aware of power grids—and how they can fail. Two years ago in Texas, the local grid failed after three winter storms in a row. Hundreds of people died, and millions were without power for days. And just last month, extreme cold across the United States once again pushed power grids to the brink.但现在情况已经大不相同了。极端天气事件让更多人关注到电网——以及在什么条件下电网会瘫痪。两年前，在德克萨斯州，当地电网在经历了连续三次冬季暴风雪后瘫痪。此次事故导致数百人死亡，数百万人断电数日。而就在上个月，美国各地的极端寒冷再次将电网推到了崩溃的边缘。
It doesn’t have to be this way. The solution is clear: We need to upgrade our grid, build more high-voltage transmission lines that can carry electricity long distances, and use those transmission lines to better connect regions and communities to one another.情况本不必至此。解决办法也很明确：我们需要升级电网，建造更多可以远距离输送电力的高压输电线路，并利用这些输电线路更好地连接各个地区和社区。
If we do, we will make sure people always have power when they need it. And in the process, we will unleash the potential of affordable and abundant clean energy.这样我们将确保人们在需要时获得电力的供给。在此过程中，我们还将激发潜力，获取可负担且丰富的清洁能源。
The United States has made remarkable progress over the last two years toward a future where every home is powered by clean energy. Thanks in part to historic federal investments, we’re on a path to use more clean electricity sources than ever before—including wind, solar, nuclear, and geothermal energy—which would reduce household costs, cut pollution, and diversify our energy supply so we’re not dependent on any one thing.过去两年里，美国致力于实现在未来让每家每户都能用上清洁能源并取得了显著进展。其成功部分归功于历史性的联邦政府投资，我们正在使用比以往任何时候都更充足的清洁电力能源（包括风能、太阳能、核能和地热能），这将降低家庭成本，减少污染，并使我们的能源供应多样化，这样我们就不会依赖于任何单一能源。
But to take advantage of this opportunity, we need to first bring our grid into the 21st century. (This is an issue in other places around the world, too, but I’m going to focus on the U.S. here.) The way we move electricity around in this country just isn’t designed to meet modern energy needs.但是要想利用好这个机会，我们首先需要实现电网的现代化。（这在世界其他地方也是一个问题，我在这里着重讨论美国。）美国电力输送的设计并不是为了满足现代能源的需求。
Since the beginning of the electric grid, power companies have placed most power plants close to cities. Railroads and pipelines were used to ship fossil fuels from wherever they were extracted to the power plants where they’d be burned to make electricity.自电网建立之初，电力公司就把大多数发电厂都建在城市附近。用铁路和管道来将化石燃料从开采地运到发电厂，并在那里燃烧供电。
That model doesn’t work with solar and wind, because many of the best places to generate lots of electricity are far away from urban centers. Picture the windy plains of Iowa or the sunny deserts of Arizona. You can’t exactly ship sunlight in a railcar, so to maximize clean energy’s potential, we’re going to need much longer lines to move that power from where it’s made to where it’s needed. We’ll also need more lines, because our country’s demand will only go up in the years ahead as we electrify more things (like our cars!). Many estimates suggest electricity demand could more than double by 2050 to reach net zero.这种模式不适用于太阳能和风能，而这是因为产生大量电力的许多绝佳地点都远离城市中心。想象一下爱荷华州的多风平原或亚利桑那州阳光充足的沙漠。你不可能用轨道车运送阳光，所以为了最大限度地发挥清洁能源的潜力，我们将需要更长的线路，来将电力从生产地运送到需要的地方。同时，我们还需要更多的线路，因为随着更多事物转向电气化（比如我们的汽车！），我们国家的电力需求在未来几年只会上升。许多估计数据表明，到2050年，为达到净零排放，电力需求可能会增加一倍以上。
Even if we weren’t working toward a clean energy future, though, we’d still need to update our grid. That’s because our grid infrastructure is just plain old. Most of our current transmission and distribution lines were built between the 1950s and 1970s, and they only have a 50-year life expectancy. This would be a problem in normal times, but the repeated extreme weather of recent years has only served to underline how vulnerable we are as we enter an era when these events will be more common.不过，即使我们不是要朝着清洁能源的未来努力，我们仍然需要更新电网。这是因为我们的电网基础设施实在是太过陈旧了。我们目前大多数的输配电线路都建于20世纪50年代到70年代之间，它们的预期寿命只有50年。在正常（天气）情况下，这就已经会出现问题，而近年来反复出现的极端天气只会更加突显我们的脆弱，因为我们进入了一个灾害更为频发的时代。
Beyond being old and outdated, there’s another big problem making everything worse: Our grid is fragmented. Most people (including me a lot of the time) talk about the “electric grid” as if it’s one single grid covering the whole nation from coast to coast, but it’s actually a complicated patchwork of systems with different levels of connection to one another.除了老旧和过时，还有一个大问题使一切变得更糟：我们的电网是支离破碎的。大多数人（包括我很多时候）在谈论“电网”时，好像它是一整个横贯东西海岸、覆盖全国的单一电网，但它实际上是一个复杂的拼凑系统，彼此之间连接的程度各不相同。
Our convoluted network prevents communities from importing energy when challenges like extreme weather shut off their power. It also prevents power from new clean energy projects from making it to people’s homes. Right now, over 1,000 gigawatts worth of potential clean energy projects are waiting for approval—about the current size of the entire U.S. grid—and the primary reason for the bottleneck is the lack of transmission. Complicating things further is the fact that new infrastructure projects are typically planned and executed by hundreds of individual utility companies that aren’t required to coordinate.我们错综复杂的电网使社区在面临极端天气等挑战导致电力中断时，无法调拨能源。它也阻止了来自新型清洁能源项目的电力输送入户。现在，超过1000千兆瓦的潜在清洁能源项目正在等待批准（大约相当于目前整个美国电网的规模），而造成瓶颈的主要原因是缺乏电力输送途径。更加复杂的是，新的基础设施项目通常是由数百家单独的公用事业公司进行规划和执行的，而这些公司并不会被要求协调一致。
To clear the way, the United States needs to address the three main barriers that are to blame for the lack of progress:为了扫清障碍，美国亟待解决阻碍进展的三个主要问题：
1. Planning: Like all infrastructure projects, new transmission lines and grid upgrades start with planning. Plans are usually based on near-term energy use forecasts or even backward-looking data—which means new lines aren’t being built with future needs in mind. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, has recently proposed a rule that would require transmission providers to do longer-term and more forward-looking planning. It’s also considering other new policies that would potentially require regular regional coordination on interstate power lines. How these policies are developed and implemented will be critically important.
1. 规划：像所有的基础设施项目一样，新的输电线路和电网升级始于规划。规划通常是基于近期的能源使用预测，甚至是往期数据，这意味着新线路的建设并没有考虑到未来的需求。美国联邦能源管理委员会（FERC）最近提出了一项规定，要求输电供应商进行更长期、更具前瞻性的规划。FERC还在考虑制定要求对各州间电力线路进行定期区域协调的其他新政策的可能性。如何制定和实施这些政策将至关重要。
2. Paying: The federal government determines how large-scale infrastructure improvements are funded—either via tax payments or through allocating cost to consumers. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law passed in 2021 invested some money in transmission projects, but we need to invest more on the federal level while also making it more affordable for local authorities to undertake new projects. FERC should help address cost allocation problems by spreading the costs of big projects across entire regions instead of asking only the people at the end of the line to pay.2. 资金：联邦政府决定如何为大规模的基础设施升级提供资金——要么通过税收支付，要么通过向消费者分配成本。2021年通过的《两党基础设施法》为输电项目投入了一些资金，但我们需要在联邦层面上进行更多的资金投入，同时也要让地方当局承担新项目的成本更低。FERC应该帮助解决成本分配问题，将大型项目的成本分摊到整个地区，而不是只要求线路末端的用户支付。
3. Permitting: Although the federal government determines who pays for most transmission upgrades, states are primarily the ones who issue permits for new projects. The current permitting process is long, convoluted, and often outdated. As a result, we don’t build lines fast enough, and we’re slower than other countries. Some states—like New Mexico and Colorado—are doing innovative work to speed up the process. But there is a lot more room for policymakers to work together and make the permit process easier.3. 许可：虽然是由联邦政府决定谁来支付大多数输电升级的费用，但为新项目发放许可证主要掌握在各州手中。目前的审批程序冗长、复杂，而且往往过时。因此，我们修建线路的速度不够快，比其他国家要慢。一些州（如新墨西哥州和科罗拉多州）正在进行创新工作，以加快这一进程。但政策的制定者们还有很大的提升空间，来共同合作，使许可程序更便捷。
Although transmission is primarily a policy problem, innovation will help too. For example, grid-enhancing technologies like dynamic line ratings, power flow controls, and topology optimization could increase the capacity of the existing system. Breakthrough Energy Ventures, which is part of the climate initiative I helped start, has invested in new technologies like advanced conductors and superconductors—wires that use cutting-edge materials to get more energy out of smaller lines. But these technologies aren’t a substitute for real systemic improvements and building lines in places where they don’t already exist.虽然电力输送主要源自政策问题，但创新也会有所帮助。例如，动态线路评级、功率流控制和拓扑优化等电网增强技术可以提高现有系统的容量。突破能源基金是我帮助发起的气候倡议的一部分，该公司已经投资于先进导体和超导体等新兴技术——使用尖端材料从较短的线路中获得更多电能的输电线。但这些技术并不能替代真正的系统性改进，也不能替代未铺设线路地区的电路修建。
Climate change is the hardest problem humanity has ever faced, but I believe we have the human ingenuity to solve it. And if you care about climate change, you should care about transmission.气候变化是人类有史以来面临的最艰巨的问题，但我相信人类的聪明才智能够化解这一难题。你若是关注气候变化，就应该关心电力输送问题。
Put simply: Transmission is key to our clean energy future. If we address the barriers standing in the way of that future, it will lead to lower emissions, cleaner air, more jobs, fewer blackouts, more energy and economic security, and healthier communities across the country.简而言之：电力输送是通往清洁能源未来的关键钥匙。如果我们解决了这一阻挡在实现未来面前的障碍，我们就能在全国范围内实现更低的排放、更清洁的空气、更多的就业机会、更少的停电、更多的能源和经济安全，以及更健康的社区。