Rockman,

I agree with your comments. The parts of the country that want to import electricity are the ones who have not made adequate provision for their own electricity production, often because they do not want the pollution and other problems that go along. Upgrading the grid would allow these areas to piggy-back on the areas that have made adequate provision, and further remove the responsibility for adding new electricity production. Thus, with the enhanced grid, it would be easier and easier to shut down any electric power plant that was for some reason offensive--CO2 emissions, too much water use for cooling, or because of nuclear fears. If we want to continue to have adequate electricity production, we need the responsibility for producing electricity to lie with the area that uses it.

There's another approach that's been fairly successful, and cheap, in California. Demand side management via advertising/incentives. It's, so far, been cheaper to offer rebates on more energy efficient stuff (appliances, roofing, etc...) and run some commercials telling people to turn off non-essentials during peak demand in the summer, maybe turn up the thermostat a few degrees, than it is to expand electricity transmission capacity when it would only be used one two-thousandth of the year or so. W/ demand side management, for instance an on-board timer that interfaces w/ local wlan for EV charging would be dirt cheap in cities where demand would be the greatest and could charge problems. Dispatchable cuts, so to speak, are already here, it's just how pervasive they need to be given peak energy consumption compared to average energy consumption.