Electric transmission line to supply more power to Los Alamos National Laboratory can move forward

A new electric transmission line to bring more power to Los Alamos National Laboratory can be built through the Caja del Rio.

Los Alamos National Laboratory’s power needs are expected to exceed the capacity of its transmission lines in 2027, according to the decision notice. That’s why agencies overseeing the national lab, the Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration, want to build a 14-mile transmission line in the Santa Fe National Forest that would cross the Caja del Rio Plateau.

On Tuesday, the National Nuclear Security Administration decided there would be no significant impact from the project, allowing it to move ahead.

“I cannot overstate the importance of this project to our national security mission, which increasingly relies on sufficient and reliable energy sources and energy transmission infrastructure,” NNSA Los Alamos Field Office Manager Ted Wyka said in a statement.

Los Alamos will get a new supercomputer in 2027 that will exceed the capacity of one of the lab’s two existing transmission lines, Lab Director Thom Mason said in a January State of the Lab town hall. That is a problem because the lab needs to have a redundant electric supply, he said.

The Caja del Rio coalition, a group of environmental advocates and community leaders, believe the transmission line could negatively affect the Caja del Rio’s waterways, wildlife and cultural resources.

“This proposed power line threatens important wildlife habitat — including the Caja del Rio Cultural and Wildlife special management area that we worked with thousands of community members, elected officials, and ultimately the U.S. Forest Service over many years to protect,” EarthKeepers 360 founder the Rev. Andrew Black said in a statement.

Construction of the line itself should start next summer on lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management and Santa Fe National Forest, according to NNSA Los Alamos Field Office spokesperson Toni Chiri. The NNSA is moving forward with electrical infrastructure improvements at LANL this fall to support the increased power from the planned 115 kilovolt transmission line.

The Department of Energy requested $88 million for the power capacity upgrade at LANL in the 2026 fiscal year. The project’s approved cost range is $215 million to $349 million, according to DOE’s budget justification. The total cost increased because of rising equipment costs, higher construction labor rates, environmental and cultural mitigations and an updated assessment of the existing electrical infrastructure.

Beyond the transmission line, the project also includes upgrades to substations and a fiber optic line to improve communications to LANL and Los Alamos.

While NNSA determined there would be no significant effect, the agency did find negative effects from the project, according to the decision notice. The agencies working on the project couldn’t establish a route for the transmission line that avoids all “visual, atmospheric and auditory impacts to cultural resources.” NNSA signed an agreement with neighboring tribes and stakeholders to mitigate some of the project’s impacts.

Still, some tribes take issue with the project moving forward.

“Tesuque Pueblo has consistently taken the position that without a comprehensive environmental impact statement and Pueblo led ethnographic study, many of the cultural sites and other critically important natural resources within the Caja are in jeopardy of being lost forever,” Pueblo of Tesuque attorney Jim James said in a statement. “The sacred relationship between the Pueblo and the entire landscape was never seriously considered by the NNSA.”