As someone who spends a significant amount of time in Europe, the American overhead power lines seemso archaic and ugly. Makes US cities seem like cities in developing countries.
Yes running into the plant…. But the substation will have to be built to power it. How far away and what needs to be built I guess based on existing infrastructure and needs For example Toyota has at least 135 circuits running into its Kentucky plant with a demand of of 85 MVA. They generate some of their own power via methane recovery from a near by dump. But they have transmission lines running to the substation at which point the voyage is stepped down and run into the plant.
Yes, I am assuming that since there is a town, there is a substation within 5 - 10 miles, although that's not guaranteed by any means. That's why I specified Distribution lines (not Transmission) lines into the facility. 69kv poles could be run in existing roadside right of way. 230kv Transmssion towers, not so much.
There really won't be any major headwinds. Most of the local residents could scream till their faces turned blue, and they still won't be able to stop anything. The property owners have already agreed to sell all the necessary land. The property will theoretically have to be rezoned, but the signals are pretty clear that's just a formality since the majority of the people who will be voting on that were involved in landing the deal in the first place. The best option upset locals will have is environmental review, which could be a headwind anywhere since it just takes a few people willing to spend money on litigation to be a nuisance about that part of the process.
Density is a key factor there.
I'm 100% in favor of reuse/repurpose projects. But razing an existing industrial facility would likely add 3 - 6 months to their timeline, more if it is an EPA "brownfield" type facility with contamination concerns. Seems like Rivian wants, and needs, the fastest track possible.
Overhead is much cheaper to construct. And much cheaper and much quicker to repair.
This is roughly 20 million sqft. Average Amazon center is less than 10% of that.
^ say you don’t understand the cost of infrastructure or population density of US/EU without saying you understand it…
In 2020, both Walton and Morgan county voted for Trump at >70% rate. Similar vote margin for the GOP candidate in both US Senate runoffs. The county immediately west, closer to ATL, was 55-60% for the Dem candidates in all 3 of those races. I'm too lazy to find precinct-level results to see how close to that corner of the counties the blue areas stretch.
