The plan to bring more electricity to the West

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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**Joel Ferry** (0:20)
We're not saying, hey, get rid of permitting, get rid of some of the conditions that exist, but what we are saying is, it shouldn't take 10 or 20 years to permit a transmission line.

**Chris Bentley** (0:29)
You can build all the power plants you want, but if you can't move that electricity where the demand is, it doesn't do much good. That's why a coalition of Western governors wants to make it easier to build new transmission lines.
It's Monday, July 13th, and this is Here and Now Anytime from NPR and WBUR of Austin. I'm Chris Bentley. Today on the show, new studies suggest merit pay for teachers could benefit the whole classroom. But paying teachers more when their students do well is not as straightforward as it sounds. This program is trying to not just reward teachers who stay in the profession, but teachers who are demonstrated to be effective, based admittedly on the controversial metric of improving student test scores. Also, journalist Gary Baum has had people dispute his articles before, but never like this. A private AI tribunal called Objection asked him to spill his reporting notebook so it could, quote, adjudicate a determination of truth.

**Gary Baum** (1:41)
Journalists like myself are used to blow back, but this was something different. It was sort of Kafkaesque.

**Chris Bentley** (1:47)
What he found in his investigation of the AI startup, scrutinizing journalists, coming up in about 10 minutes. But first, the American power grid needs work. That's why 11 leaders of Western states are planning to spend billions of dollars to upgrade the grid over the next decade. Specifically, they're talking about building more transmission lines. Those are the heavy duty lines carrying electricity over long distances, held up by those big steel towers, not the distribution lines carrying it locally around your neighborhood.
With electricity demand rising just about everywhere, people need more power. And maybe even more than new sources of that power, they need a more efficient way to move power around the grid. The Western Transmission Expansion Coalition, or West Tech, estimates that 11 state area I mentioned will need more than 12,000 miles of new transmission lines in the next 10 years.
Joel Ferry is Utah's Commissioner of the Department of Natural Resources. They are a part of that coalition. He told Peter O'Dowd, well, the grid is in desperate need of upgrades.

**Joel Ferry** (3:02)
It could be everything from just upgrading existing lines, or it could be new lines. We have new areas of demand, new areas of need, and the current system just cannot support the needs here in the Western United States. When you look at the West, we have these isolated cities, and then vast swaths of open land in between.
Everything was built out in that regional pattern. Today, we're more interconnected. There's more people. The West is where it's growing in the US, and we need more investment. We anticipate tens of billions of dollars, upwards of $60, $70 billion to accomplish what needs to happen within the next decade.

**Peter O'Dowd** (3:42)
I know you're aware that Utah, in this huge data center that's planned for Box Elder County, has been sort of ground zero for this national backlash against data centers. I mean, how much of that growth that you project, can you say is data center related versus something else?

**Joel Ferry** (3:57)
Well, it's a combination. I mean, it is data center related, but data centers aren't just what powers our social media. Every day, they're making our lives better through new technologies, new advancements. And so, yes, data centers are a driving force, but it's also, you know, if you think about how many electric vehicles are out on the road now, you think about even just yesterday, we saw the highest temperatures in Salt Lake City that have ever been recorded. So that means people are going to be running their air conditioners more. That takes energy. And then you add the growth on top of it. And because of that, we have all these increased demands.

**Peter O'Dowd** (4:31)
So what's the vision? You have these 11 states coming together across the Western United States to plan a grid that could accommodate this growth you're talking about. You see approximately 12,600 miles of planned, new and upgraded transmission. And as you said, a $60 billion investment.

**Joel Ferry** (4:46)
That's right. So the Western States governors got together and did what they call the PACT, which is Transmission Permitting Alignment Coordinating Task Force. To help us as we streamline and push for updated regulations and ability to build out these transmission systems, we're not saying, hey, get rid of permitting, get rid of some of the conditions that exist. But what we are saying is, it shouldn't take 10 or 20 years to permit a transmission line.