Despite ambitious goals toward combating climate change, Oregon and Washington lag far behind other states when it comes to adding renewable energy. 

Our series It’s Not Easy Going Green focused on the struggles around the creation of new green energy projects. But it turns out that even if Oregon and Washington built all the wind and solar farms anyone could want, there’s just not enough grid capacity in the Northwest to deliver that energy to people’s homes. 

That’s according to a new investigation from Oregon Public Broadcasting and ProPublica. OPB reporters Tony Schick and Monica Samayoa scrutinized the Northwest’s transmission grid and its operator, the Bonneville Power Administration, which in the past decade has hooked up only one wind or solar plant, and that was an add-on to an existing plant. 

So, for a bonus episode of the series, Cascade PBS investigative reporter Brandon Block sat down with Schick and Samayoa to compare notes on why the Pacific Northwest’s dream of clean energy remains so far from reality. 

Read Schick and Samayoa’s reporting, “How the Pacific Northwest’s Dream of Green Energy Fell Apart” and “Higher Prices, Rolling Blackouts,” at OPB.org or ProPublica.org. 

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Producers:  Maleeha Syed, Sara Bernard

Reporter:  Brandon Block

Story editor: Ryan Famuliner

Executive producer: Sarah Menzies

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