A Stronger Electricity Grid Is Crucial to Cutting Carbon. Does that Make It Green? A proposal to lay cables beneath the Columbia River is met with skepticism from an Indigenous activist and the river’s advocates. Peter Fairley Today | The Tyee / Investigate West Peter Fairley is an award-winning journalist based in Victoria and San Francisco, whose writing has appeared in Scientific American, NewScientist, Hakai Magazine, Technology Review, the Atlantic, Nature and elsewhere. SHARES Wind etches the Columbia River’s surface downstream of Squally Point, at right in the distance. Around the bend lies The Dalles, where Cascade Renewable Transmission partners propose to start laying power cables in the riverbed. The cables would deliver enough renewable energy to Portland to power nearly one million homes.