By JOHN BUCHSER
Chair
Northern Group of Sierra Club
Rio Grande Chapter

Over the last 10 years, new designs of wire for high voltage power lines have resulted in an over 85% capacity increase as compared to older wire design. This wire can be used to replace older wire at a cost 50% less than building new power lines.

If both power lines feeding LANL that cross the Rio Grande are reconductored, the total power capacity available to LANL will nearly double, without the disruption of a new power line that adds to the visual clutter across the canyon and traverses across a presently undisturbed section of the Caja del Rio.

Three companies in the US manufacture this wire. Just one of these companies has supplied their wire to over 1,600 projects. There are many examples of reconductoring 115KV power lines while energized. This can be done for the two lines that Los Alamos County depends on.

The two substations that feed these two high voltage power lines are in Hernandez to the north, and Algodones to the South. It is quite likely that there would need to be upgrades to these two electrical substations to support the additional capacity. Due to the greater length of these two existing lines to the LANL substation as compared to the proposed new power line connecting to the Norton substation just west of Santa Fe, total costs would likely be comparable. 

The lab has recently started an initiative to bring in renewable power with solar facilities located on Pueblos to the North and South of LANL. Upgrades to infrastructure, potentially new substations to feed the renewable power onto the existing two lines, should be considered.

Reconductoring is a sensible solution to avoid new disruptions to our beautiful landscape so valued by our residents and visitors.