We took a drive out to Raven on Saturday. Low and behold, there's a
rather large transmission line going right through the approximate
location of the future Raven substation. This line is apparently the
340kV line from a BPA connection near Alturas, to Reno, built around
1998. There was a lot of controversy around the construction, with TANC
not liking the line at all. Now however, it looks like TANC may ahve
worked something out with Sierra Power (NV) that owns the line.

Maps of the Alturas-Reno project:
http://gc.energy.gov/NEPA/nepa_documents/eis/eis0256/maps.pdf

Page of data for the Alturas-Reno EIR/EIS:
http://www.gc.energy.gov/NEPA/finalEIS-0256.htm

One item of interest is that the Raven substation appears to be planned
to sit right on the Nelson Corral fault line, which shows on the maps 11-12:
http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/esc/earthquake_engineering/Seismology/MapReport.PDF
Map 2 shows the Ravendale area about where the image says map 12 of 33

So.... looks like intertie with the Alturas-Reno line may be on the list
of things not mentioned, along with the fault line.

In the Alturas area, looks like there are some rumblings of geothermal
test drilling on some lands to the east of Cedarville (in escorw waiting
on drilling results). I can't tell if the projects are within CA or over
the border in NV.

Also, after looking at the WECC planning review cost analysis (I've
aready sent you the links earlier) for the 4 route options, TANCs being
CA 1, It raises the qustion of why the most expensive route was selected
to pursue. The cost difference of nearly half a billion dollars (444
million est) would pay for a lot of underground lines through private
lands in the the CA 4 option (Raven - Elverta/Raven/ Tesla Bypass via
Table Mountain) once the route exited public lands.