This week, a plan to build the nation’s first green infrastructure highway was unveiled. And with Illinois at the center of the project, more green jobs and environmental protections could be on the horizon here.

Michigan-based ITC Holdings Corp. has announced it plans build 3,000 miles of sorely-needed transmission lines—dubbed the Green Power Express—removing the single biggest obstacle to moving wind-generated electricity from rural areas like the Dakotas to big cities such as Chicago. The grid will stretch across Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana, where it will link up with established lines.

The Green Power Express is great news for Illinois and the other surrounding states. The $12 billion project, which will likely span over more than a decade, will create yet more union-wage, wind industry jobs. There are the immense environmental benefits, too. If used to full capacity, replacing non-renewable sources with wind power will cut 34 million metric tons of carbon emissions from the air—the equivalent of doing away with nine coal plants or 11 million automobiles, ITC estimates.

“It can’t be underestimated,” Wind for Illinois’ director Kevin Borgia told us yesterday. “Once this project moves forward, it’s really going to accelerate renewable.”

As of this week, an application for the project is on record with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. But that hurdle will be the first of many, according to Borgia.

Officials across the Upper Midwest—the Dakotas, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana—are going to have to approve construction permits. And, as we’ve seen here in the Prairie State, that’s not always easy.

Image used under a Creative Commons license by Flickr user tochis.