Imagine that you want to build a new electricity transmission line, so that the power generated by new solar or wind projects can be transmitted over the grid to where it is needed.

The Permitting Institute provides the following helpful figure to show the process, although you may need to expand the figure on your screen or go to the original source to read the steps. As noted in small type at the bottom, the figure only includes federal requirements, and so state and local permitting issues would be in addition to these. If you consider yourself a supporter of trying to electrify multiple sectors of the economy–electricity, transportation, heating and cooling of buildings, manufacturing processes–with a major expansion of solar and wind power, the electrical grid will need to perhaps triple in size in the next few decades. From that standpoint, this process in the figure is a problem.