NorthWestern Energy’s announcement this week that it wants to build a 500-kilovolt electric transmission line from southwest Montana to southern Idaho joins plenty of other transmission projects in the state, both proposed or already well into the permitting process.

And while pretty much all aspects of energy development are controversial in these days of concern about global warming, self-sufficiency, and the escalating price of energy, new power lines certainly are welcome.

You have had to have been around awhile to remember the big East Coast blackout of 1965, but most of us can recall the huge outage that darkened the northeast from Ohio to the Atlantic and into Canada on Aug. 14, 2003. That cascading breakdown opened the country’s eyes to the inadequacies of our whole electricity grid system.

Last year, a study by University of Illinois Professor George Gross reported that little had changed in terms of transmission capacity, a major factor in widespread blackouts, since the 2003 outage. Growth in demand was forecast to be 20 percent between 1998 and 2008, Gross said, “but the increase in transmission capacity is still below 5 percent.”

There’s plenty else wrong with the grid, including the need for faster warning system and deregulation that put making money rather than providing for universal electrical service at the forefront of energy company’s goals. (One recalls the rolling California blackouts caused in no small part by Enron’s machinations.)

Back in Montana, it has long been recognized that major increases in energy production, including wind power, can’t happen without expanding our transmission capability. That, together with a more general interest in modernizing the grid, is reason enough to welcome NorthWestern’s plan, the Great Falls to Lethbridge, Alberta, line, and several more expansive proposals to connect with the southwestern U.S. or the Pacific Coast. Wherever the future of energy productions takes this country, moving electrons will remain a key to our prosperity.