Environmentalists and renewable energy advocates have argued for nearly a decade that renewables and conservation could replace the power now produced by four dams on the Snake River.

The Bonneville Power Administration, long a leader in renewables and conservation, responded that the environmentalists were over optimistic about how much alternative energy was available. This position was critical to its economic argument against removing the four dams in Washington to restore endangered salmon and steelhead in the Snake River.

But times have changed. The Pacific Northwest is developing wind power at a breakneck pace. The current level of wind power has a capacity of 1,490 megawatts of wind power, which is predicted to rise to 2,000 megawatts by the end of the year according to the BPA in a story in the Oregonian .

Wind developers are ready to add 4,716 megawatts in the next five years, the BPA says.

"It's phenomenal," the Oregonian quotes Elliot Mainzer, a transmission manager with the federal Bonneville Power Administration. "It's more than we expected."

The problem is not enough transmission to move the power around. This problem was demonstrated a few weeks ago when federal dam operators were forced to spill too much water over dams away from hydro turbines because the region was producing too much wind power.

Idaho Power is trying to build a new transmission line west to tap into this power. The importance of new transmission was shown in a new report released Monday by the Idaho National Laboratory.

It says the region will lose out on $55-85 billion in economic activity and up to 60,000 jobs annually over the next 25 years. The report was released at the Pacific NorthWest Economic Region annual summit in Vancouver, BC.

With the salmon issue coming to a head later this year or early next year this new renewable energy potential offers the Pacific Northwest some technological and economic tools to shape a region solution. The supply of the entire regional hydropower system is at stake at a time when, because of climate change, it has never been more valuable.

Now transporting the power is at least as important as new generation. National labs like the INL need to examine how we can more efficiently transmit electrons around the country. One place they should look is at superconducting technology, which now is used primarily on big colliders like FermiLab in Illinois.