Since Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse lit up Buffalo from Niagara Falls at the end of the 19th century, electricity has been an integral part of American life, heating homes, freezing food, and powering computers. But the U.S. electric grid is old, with most transmission lines and power plants decades into their lives. The grid modernization debate and initiatives have been on the table for years, but now President Trump’s proposal for a $1 trillion investment in American infrastructure is reviving questions about how much investment the energy infrastructure needs, and how much it would cost to replace, upgrade, or simply maintain the aged and strained U.S. electric grid. Joshua D. Rhodes, Postdoctoral Researcher of Energy at the University of Texas at Austin, has estimated that currently the depreciated value of the grid – including power plants, wires, transformers and poles – stands at between $1.5 trillion and $2 […]