Adding capacity to the electricity grid is not a simple task

Re:Adding capacity to the electricity grid is not a simple task by justrealist on Thursday April 06, 2023 @10:54AM (#35469135)

The fact is that the rural US has benefitted from the US's very robust freight rail network, almost all of which was either taken via eminent domain or before the land was parceled out.

If we tried to rebuild the train network we have today using the protracted legal process we have for reallocating land, it would be 100% impossible.

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Re:Adding capacity to the electricity grid is not a simple task by StrictDabbler on Thursday April 06, 2023 @11:18AM (#35469505)

The rail network is a big part of the reason we're in this mess, though.

The "checkerboard" system granted alternating squares of land to the railroad companies as an incentive to build out the network. The railroads sold those squares to various entities.

The result is that much of the public land in the Western United States is "corner-locked". There are two parcels, diagonally adjacent, but a new easement would be required to cross between them.

Even if you could get the corner easement you'd be running lines that zig-zag all over the place, so now the private owner can extract whatever the savings are for a straight line.

https://www.onxmaps.com/onx-access-initiatives/corner-crossi...

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Re:Adding capacity to the electricity grid is not a simple task by justrealist on Thursday April 06, 2023 @11:49AM (#35470078)

This seems like a completely unrelated implementation detail.

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Re:Adding capacity to the electricity grid is not a simple task by mywittyname on Thursday April 06, 2023 @12:05PM (#35470360)

Seriously. The government could have just leased rights to the land for 100 years to the railroad companies.

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Re:Adding capacity to the electricity grid is not a simple task by justrealist on Thursday April 06, 2023 @12:28PM (#35470737)

We don't need to go full PRC, we can just make land grants that make geometric sense.

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Re:Adding capacity to the electricity grid is not a simple task by mywittyname on Thursday April 06, 2023 @05:45PM (#35474951)

If the concern is getting multiple companies to cooperate and preventing them from accumulating too much land/power, leases are a good solution.

Land leases are not bad things just because the PRC happens to use them. The USG leases a crapload of land to companies for various profitable enterprises. It's a tool in the toolbox.

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