For the past 4 years, consumers have had someone looking out for them at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.  FERC Commissioner Mark Christie, most recently Chair of the Commission, never forgot who he was working for.  He never forgot that regulation serves to protect the captive consumers of monopoly utilities.

​The American Bar Association defines regulation like this:

It used to be that regulation was a specialized skill practiced by experienced regulators.  But all that seems to have been chucked aside in the past 20 years as politics invades the regulatory realm.  There should never be politics in regulation because politics are not necessarily in the public interest.  However, when you let politicians nominate and/or appoint regulators, you may just end up with more powerful politicians.  And sometimes, you end up with special interests in regulator seats, where they regulate in the interest of corporations or special interest ideology.  

And then there was Commissioner Christie, who always did the right thing, because it was the right thing to do.

One of the more memorable things is his famous PATH rant at the December 2023 Commission meeting.  Begin at minute 13:48 and watch for about 5 minutes until he's finished.

And then there was his recent dissent on Valley Link's request for financial incentives.

And then there was the time he wanted to open up an investigation of PJM's cost allocation for data center transmission lines.

Commissioner Christie has both surprised and delighted this long-time FERC watcher.  I can truthfully say that he is the BEST Commissioner FERC has had in the almost two decades I've been doing this.  I remember how much he terrified me the first time I encountered him in full poker face, sitting on a stage at an SCC public hearing for the PATH transmission project.  But that was a different time and a different me.

So, why this dirge?  

Imagine that after a long career of service you find out you're fired when a reporter calls you for a quote?  He deserved much better than this (finally something I can agree with former FERC gadfly Neil Chatterjee about).

I hope Commissioner Christie deals with this the same unique way he's carried out his term at FERC.  Maybe instead of jumping right into private practice as some white shoe law firm's FERC whisperer, Christie might just retire.  I mean really retire.  Enjoy life.  Do all those things on his bucket list.

If not, I'm sure he'll do good wherever he goes next.

​So, what's next for FERC?  Laura Swett, who currently works for one of those white shoe law firms after a brief stint being an advisor at FERC.  That revolving door is spinning away.

It's kind of like being given a handful of poison berries instead of the M&M's you're used to eating.

Why did someone think it was a good idea to replace an experienced regulator who works in the public interest with a corporate attorney?  Is there anyone left at the Commission who knows that they are working for consumers?

For the past 15 years, Grain Belt Express has been all about exporting "clean" wind power from southwestern Kansas.  Grain Belt Express begins there because of the area's past potential for new wind turbines.

No more.  Grain Belt Express is now all about...

Grain Belt's application for a taxpayer-funded loan from the U.S. Department of Energy is based on this qualifier from the DOE's Draft Environmental Impact Statement:

Grain Belt Express is no longer eligible for this loan, and its Draft Environmental Impact Statement is no longer valid.

When did Grain Belt Express stop being all about "clean energy"?  November 5, 2024, when Donald Trump was elected to his second term as President.  In fact, GBE parent company Invenergy's CEO Michael Polsky was a big donor for Trumps Inaguaration.  And now Polsky has set out on a campaign to pretend Grain Belt Express is something it isn't.  Check out this interview where the chameleon in chief convinces vapid Fox News personality Maria Bartoromo that his project is something new.

How stupid do they think we are?

Grain Belt Express is now attempting to attract energy slurping data centers to locate in Missouri and take service on Grain Belt Express.  Why would data centers do that when they can locate in southwestern Kansas near the source of the energy that Grain Belt is importing to Missouri?  If data centers built in Kansas, they wouldn't have to pay exorbitant fees to Grain Belt Express to supply energy from SW Kansas.  I'm pretty sure the financial incentives to locate in Missouri over Kansas are not going to cover the cost of importing power on Grain Belt Express.  Why would data centers buy the Grain Belt cow when they can get the milk for free in Kansas?

Furthermore, why is Kansas content to have the energy it produces shipped to Missouri so that data centers will locate in Missouri and so that Missouri can feast on all the tax revenue data centers provide?

Sorry, Dan, but Grain Belt Express does NOT provide any reduction in energy costs for Kansans.  It ships energy produced in Kansas to Missouri and raises prices in Kansas by reducing the supply of energy available for Kansans.  Supply and demand, Dan, supply and demand.  Have I got a deal for Dan!!!  Instead of Grain Belt Express, how about a whole bunch of new data centers in southwest Kansas that produce hundreds of millions of dollars a year in property and other tax revenue?  You could have that if you reject Grain Belt Express!  Wake up, Dan, they're bamboozling you!

New data centers want to locate in places where there is a vast supply of power, not places where they are dependent upon long distance transmission lines that may never come to fruition.  And what about all those wind farms in southwest Kansas planned to feed Grain Belt Express?  Are they all still proceeding full steam ahead under Donald Trump?  Better take another look at that one!

Grain Belt Express touts its 39 municipal customers in Missouri in its recent press release:

That seems to be the only customer Grain Belt Express has... still.  Those 39 Missouri municipalities are contracted to take less than 5% of Grain Belt's capacity.  Because Grain Belt Express is a merchant transmission project, it needs signed contracts to produce enough revenue to be financially viable.  Less than five percent of its capacity is NOT enough to support the project's revenue requirement.  Grain Belt has been trying to find more customers than the Missouri munis for ten years now and still hasn't announced any other customers.  Grain Belt Express cannot be built unless it finds enough customers to cover its costs.

And now Grain Belt Express has morphed once again into a transmission line for new data centers who probably are not interested.  How much more money is Michael Polsky going to drop into this dead dog of a project, trying to make it pencil out?  He didn't get to be so stinking rich by making bad business decisions.  Isn't it time to give up on Grain Belt Express?

Grain Belt Express is an albatross around everyone's neck.  It's a project idea that has been dead for years.  Let it go!

What's scarier to greedy corporate interests than a grassroots movement against their industry?  Your success!  Corporate interests, whether it's the electric transmission industry, housing, data centers, or any other invasive and destructive industry are terrified of being thwarted by grassroots movements in the communities where they want to make money.

Last week, a grassroots group opposed to a new transmission line through central Maryland took their fight to the industry at a conference celebrating the data center industry in Frederick, Maryland.  

Let's examine this article using one of my favorite tools -- the seven common propaganda devices.  This tool is one of the oldest in the propaganda handbook.

The device employed most frequently by the conference organizers was "Name Calling."  

First example -- in the quoted paragraph above the demonstration was referred to as "the ruckus."  Protestors were also referred to as "noisy", a "flashmob", and "outraged".  A noisy, outraged, flashmob ruckus, a description that is intended to turn the reader against the protestors.  It's an ad hominem argument... don't pay any attention to what those people are saying because they are members of an unacceptable group.

​Protestors were also called uneducated.

...another name calling technique to marginalize you and steal your power.  I'm going to guess that Rick Weldon knows a lot less about MPRP than any one of the protestors, but he uses his position to create a presumption of superior knowledge.  The "education deficit" model has been a long time favorite of transmission project proponents.  They like to think that opposition to transmission only happens because the community doesn't have enough information to make a sensible decision.  However the opposite is actually true, the more you know about a proposed transmission project, the worse it sounds.  No amount of information or "education" can change the mind of a landowner threatened by new transmission ripping through his largest investment.

Uneducated outrage is how opponents were framed in order to make conference attendees see them as an unacceptable group who should not be acknowledged.

Meanwhile, conference organizers employed "Glittering Generalities" to boost their own position.  Jobs, school funding, dramatic growth in local businesses, Maryland's economy, land conservation, hiking and biking trails, and the most vague of all... a bright future!

Conference organizers also tried to sever Maryland's data centers from the MPRP.  Either they are uneducated themselves, or they are spinning a carefully crafted alternate reality.  Although Quantum Loophole's power supply is being provided by upgrading a dedicated transmission line to the old Eastalco plant, that doesn't mean QL won't benefit from MPRP.  Quantum Loophole's dedicated transmission line feeds power from the Doubs substation to Quantum Loophole.  Doubs is also the endpoint for the MPRP.  All power flowing through MPRP is delivered to Doubs, where it is transferred to the numerous lines feeding out of Doubs, including the one to Quantum Loophole.  Power from MPRP will absolutely be used at Quantum Loophole.  Could Quantum Loophole get as much power as it needed if MPRP was cancelled?  PJM Interconnection planned MPRP as one of several new 500kV transmission lines to serve data center load in Virginia and Maryland.  And since Quantum Loophole seems to support MPRP, it stands to reason they think they will benefit from it.

The public relations war is heating up.  But what will they say when those same protestors put down their protest signs and go inside the PSC to defend their properties through the legal process?  Will Quantum Loophole step up to defend MPRP?  Or will it use proxies to do so, such as labor unions and local business groups?  A different kind of war will break out at the PSC once the application is filed, and that's where the ultimate decision will be made.

Well, here's another particularly noxious transmission project weed!  The so-called "Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project" or MPRP.  This industry loves its acronyms!

In 2023, regional grid manager PJM Interconnection devised a suite of new electric transmission projects designed to import new electricity supplies to new data centers in Northern Virginia, and for Frederick County's new Quantum Loophole project.  Data centers use so much electricity, it's equivalent to large cities sprouting up overnight in previously rural places.  New cities need new power supplies, especially because Maryland has been closing all its baseload power plants that run on fossil fuels.  Before Maryland's recent plant closures under their "clean energy" plan, the state was importing 40% of the energy it used.  Now, it needs even more imports!  We're heading toward more than 50% of Maryland's electricity being imported from neighboring states via new high-voltage transmission lines.  The only two states in the PJM region that generate more electricity than they use and can export to Maryland are West Virginia and Pennsylvania.  The MPRP is importing electricity from southeastern Pennsylvania.  Other new transmission projects are exporting electricity from West Virginia's coal-fired plants to Loudoun County's "Data Center Alley.  It's nothing more than a series of enormous electric extension cords for data centers.  In PJM's planning process, it looked like this:

Frederick County was sleeping the sleep of the uninformed throughout the planning and approval process at PJM.  And now it has manifested.

The project was assigned by PJM to New Jersey utility Public Service Enterprise Group.  Why them?  PJM put its new project requirements out for bid, and PSEG submitted the best project for PJM's needs.  PSEG also offered a certain price for the project.  There's more to this, but let's stop there for now.  Since PJM approved this project and assigned it to PSEG last December, PSEG has been busy devising a route for the project, and now they have finished and want to share it with the public.

PSEG will be holding public "open house" meetings across the project area early next month.  See website for details.  The "meeting" is hardly an actual meeting though.  It's a series of information stations the public is supposed to file through, and you may be handed a card to fill out with your thoughts at the end of the meeting.  Each little station will be populated with PSEG representatives, and you can ask them questions.  But there is no formal presentation or Q&A session where everyone can hear each question and answer.  Go ahead... ask different representatives the exact same question and get wildly different answers.  This is why utilities hold these kinds of meetings.  They will tell you what they think you want to hear, and not be held accountable for any of it.  The main purpose of the "meeting" is to introduce preliminary route maps to the impacted community and receive feedback that could help guide the final route that PSEG files for approval of the Maryland Public Service Commission.

This preliminary route map is floating around social media.

Not a lot of detail, but it's a damn sight better than PJM's initial map as far as determining where they expect this project to go.  At the open house meeting next month, PSEG will have the detailed aerial maps that you want to see.  The maps may present numerous short route segments that can be pieced together to create a route.  They may ask what you think of them.  Most people will reject routes that impact them, and may be tempted to champion routes that do not.  But, throwing your neighbor under the bus to save yourself is never a good strategy.  The community must come together to oppose ANY of these routes.  If data centers need new electricity supplies, they need to build new power generators near the data centers, instead of plowing through communities that won't receive any benefit.  

The MPRP will likely need new rights-of-way 150-200 feet wide for its 500kV transmission line.  The company will ask landowners to sign easements for a one-time "fair market value" payment for just the land in the easement.  This gives PSEG the right to use your land, but you will still own it and pay taxes on it.  The easement payments are compensation for land you can no longer use, they are not a windfall or profit.

The MPRP website is chock full of propaganda and small bits of information that impacted landowners need to really investigate.  For instance, the website says:

They don't tell you that the project is only necessary because of enormous new data center load.  If we didn't build the data centers, or if we built new electric generation near the data centers, this transmission line would not be necessary.   It's not for you, it's for data centers.  This project also has NOTHING to do with clean energy.  It will actually increase carbon emissions in neighboring states that will have to produce more power using fossil fuels in order to import it to new data centers in Maryland and Virginia.

​Here's another:

State law allows utilities to access property for limited survey purposes before easements are signed.  However, PSEG wants landowners to sign a document permitting all sorts of surveying and testing, including things that may harm your property, like core drilling.  Think twice about signing this document and giving PSEG unfettered access to do whatever it wants on your property before they have paid you a dime.  Maryland law already gives them access for surveying that doesn't harm your property.  You don't need to sign any document or give them further permissions.

I also didn't notice the words "eminent domain" on MPRP's website, but that's exactly how they intend to acquire land from unwilling landowners.  Easement offers are nothing more than coercion... sign and take the money... or else.  When there's no opportunity to say no, it's not voluntary land acquisition.

PSEG's website, its open house meetings, and its permission forms and easement agreements are written in the company's best interest, not yours!

The best use of PSEG's open house meeting will be the opportunity it gives you to meet new folks who are similarly affected by this project and to exchange contact information and hold further meetings among yourselves to share information of interest to landowners who want to defend themselves against this transmission project.  PSEG is not from here, it doesn't know your community, and at the end of the day it doesn't care what happens to it.  They can't see it from their house in New Jersey!

It's time to circle the wagons, Frederick County!  Later this year, PSEG may file an application with the Maryland Public Service Commission.  When that happens, you have the right to intervene and become a party to the case that can submit testimony and cross-examine utility witnesses with the goal of convincing the MPSC to deny a permit for this project.  There will also be public hearings held by MPSC where you can speak out against it.

Meanwhile, get engaged and stay current on project news.  Talk to your neighbors and others in the community who may be impacted.  Make a plan. Maybe I'll see you at the open house...

Academics who have never had a transmission line proposed across their property are at it again, writing their idiotic "reports" that claim to find the reason why transmission projects draw opposition and are not successful.  I've seen many versions of this "save the transmission world" report, and exactly none of them have gotten it right.  I think it's because they are inherently biased to think that transmission is "good" and "desperately needed."  They believe, deep down in their highly educated souls, that impacted landowners are simply speed bumps on the road to transmission "progress" and that they can figure out new ways to make landowners either acquiesce, or advocate for new transmission to cross their properties.  It's nothing but a psy op.

Nobody likes new transmission across their property.  NOBODY!  Anyone who said transmission was a great idea is either not affected, or their advocacy is being purchased with favorable treatment and ego-stroking (and cash helps, too!).

This new report (see "How Grid Projects Get Stuck" at the bottom of the page) makes conclusions about why the Grain Belt Express stalled out for so long and thinks it has now been successful.  Complete lack of accuracy!  GBE is in as much trouble now as it's ever been.  It's got its corporate head shoved too far up the Biden administration's rear end, hoping for government favors to pull itself out of the dumpster.  How much of our tax dollars will the federal government waste on a project that has never been needed?

And, speaking of need, the researchers did not seem to understand what they were told about lack of need for GBE, no matter how much people tried to educate them.  GBE, as a merchant transmission project, has not been found needed by regional transmission organizations for reliability, public policy, or economic reasons. If it had any of those benefits and its cost was less than the benefits it offered, a RTO would have ordered the project.  No RTO ordered GBE because there was no need for it, not because they are biased against outsiders.  If it's not found needed by an RTO, it is not needed.  Everyone (but the researchers) understands that.  GBE was a speculative venture, a value proposition that never could find any customers who thought it provided enough value to sign a contract.  When a project is not needed by a regional transmission planner, and it can't find any customers that think it's an economic value, then it's a completely unnecessary project.  It is like McDonald's eyeing your front yard -- GBE wants to take your front yard so it can build a transmission project for one simple reason -- PROFIT.  Not because it's needed, or because it provides economic value.  Incumbent utilities may be for profit, but they are also public utilities with an obligation to serve.  GBE is not a public utility.  GBE is only trying to create profit, not serve consumers who need electricity.

The researchers honed in on the disrespectful way Clean Line treated landowners, even mentioning the "Marketing to Mayberry" episode.  Skelly gets faulted for his approach to local governments and elected officials before landowners were even notified.  That pretty much set the tone, didn't it?  How different things might have turned out if Skelly approached landowners first and actually paid attention to their desire for the project to be sited along transportation corridors and buried.  It would be operating right now, if it had attracted customers.  Instead, Skelly and then Invenergy, just kept dumping hundreds of millions of dollars into a plan that was badly conceived from the beginning.  GBE didn't listen to landowners.

The things the researchers think GBE did wrong ultimately don't mean anything though because they picked up on the wrong things, things that wouldn't have made a difference in the long run.

What?  Poor, poor, rich little Michael Skelly.  Everyone was against him!  As they should have been!  He was only interested in plundering for profit.  Landowners have no use for him, and sent him packing back to Houston.  And did our slick willie friend learn anything from his failure?  I doubt it, judging from this article about his new company trying to build a transmission line through Montana.  SSDD.  You can almost smell the failure wafting its way from that article,

State regulators have a duty to consider the public impacts of new transmission.  That's not parochialism, that's doing their job.  State regulators don't work for merchant transmission companies, or electric consumers in other states.  They only work for the public in their jurisdiction.

Projects without benefits will never be accepted by impacted landowners.  Even projects with some supposed benefit for "the public" don't matter when it's your home and your money on the line.

Yes, the utility model of keeping the public uninformed until the project and its routes are set in stone is unhelpful.  Transmission developers that operate in secret fail in public.  But what's the alternative?  Would developers approach communities and ask them upfront what kind of project they should build?  That is unlikely because the whole public engagement process is built on an enormous misconception.  Developers (and researchers) believe that if they can only "educate" (propagandize) impacted communities, that they can turn opposition into support.  That is NEVER going to happen.  Nobody wants a transmission line. NOBODY.  Self preservation is always stronger than bullshit.

The road to success is staring transmission developers, big green transmission advocates, and their government flunkies right in the face.  It's a transmission project that does not need any new land.  No new land, no eminent domain, no impacts, no opposition.

First of all, we should build new power generation near the power load.  When new transmission is needed, it must be routed on existing linear easements, such as road, rail, or underwater.  Building a gigantic network of transmission lines for the sole purpose of connecting wind and solar projects to load in distant cities, and trying to use transmission to make up for the intermittent nature of these unreliable sources of electricity is not going to save them.  Remote wind and solar is an infeasible money pit.  The only thing it's been successful at is making the rich richer.

Landowners who don't want new transmission lines on their property are not a "problem" to be solved.

The Kansas Heartlander asks if residents are informed enough to comment on the U.S. Department of Energy's National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors proposal?

No, no they are not.

Last week, Missouri Senator Josh Hawley sent a second letter to Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm asking for clear and complete information on the NIETC proposal so that his constituents will be informed enough to make comment.  Senator Hawley also requested a 45-day extension of the comment deadline.

​Senator Hawley said...

That's because the only information the public has is a vague, not to scale map with a line drawn on it.  And the DOE has done nothing to notify citizens that they may be in a corridor.  DOE has done shockingly little press on its proposal to conscript the land of millions of Americans and turn it into high-voltage electric transmission corridors.  If not for the knowledge of a handful of watchdog citizens, DOE would be getting away with it!

It's not like DOE doesn't have the information, it's just that DOE refuses to disclose the information it used to draw its vague maps.  DOE solicited "recommendations" for corridors from greedy transmission developers back in December 2023.  DOE needs to share the information it received so that citizens can base their comments on the same information DOE will use to evaluate this proposed corridor for designation.  Citizens are drawn into a duel without any weapons.  It's absolutely shameful!

A future NIETC designation is a land use planning decision that changes the use and marketability of land in perpetuity.  Who would buy a home in a NIETC if a future transmission line is planned to destroy it?  Who would buy land and build a house in a NIETC that is subject to federal eminent domain?  How can farmers plan improvements to their businesses when they have no idea if they will even get their investment back?  It's bad enough that Missouri farmers have been threatened with Grain Belt Express for more than a decade, now the DOE is planning more transmission within a 5-mile swath of their remaining properties.  On top of that, there is no compensation offered by the DOE for property taken by a NIETC.  It's private property taken for public use, without just compensation.  The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution prohibits such a taking.  It also prohibits depriving citizens of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, and DOE is shutting down all due process for citizens impacted by its corridor proposal.

Senator Hawley is not afraid to stand up to the DOE and demand due process for citizens.   But why are the rest of our elected officials asleep?   Bravo, Senator Hawley, and thank you for your work!  I hope other Senators are brave enough to join you!

Our power appetite is bigger than our power supply.  The "renewable transition" isn't working.  We are losing large baseload power generators and not replacing them and we're adding too much load.  Our electric system is not sustainable.  It's a simple math equation.

Back in January I was contacted by a reporter from the Washington Post who had been writing about the proliferation of data centers in Northern Virginia and wanted to investigate how Virginia's out-of-control building was impacting people in surrounding states.  Virginia's data center problem is no longer just Virginia's problem.  It has now spread to the entire 14 state PJM Interconnection region.

​Here's his story that began back in January.

​For us, the story began last summer when we found out about PJM's transmission plan for multiple new high-voltage transmission lines to import more power to data center alley.  We followed it through PJM's planning process and though we protested and asked for other solutions, PJM approved three new 500kV transmission lines and a whole bunch of smaller segments and substations.  During PJM's TEAC meetings, I remarked several times that the new transmission was feeding from existing legacy coal plants in West Virginia and was actually increasing emissions and in no way helping the "renewable transition."  Every time I mentioned it, PJM was quick to claim that the new electric supply would come from "all resources, including renewables."  PJM seemed rather sensitive about the reality of its plan and vehemently denied it.  Deny this article, PJM.  It's all there in living color.

Virginia has renewable energy laws that prohibit the building of new fossil fuel generation (gas, coal).  But yet Virginia is building an incredible amount of new data centers that use outrageous amounts of power that is simply not available on the current system.  Virginia's renewable energy plan is a virtue signaling lie.  Instead of building the electric generation it needs, Virginia intends to IMPORT electricity from surrounding states, even coal-fired power from West Virginia.  ESPECIALLY coal-fired power from West Virginia.  How is Virginia's "renewable energy" law cleaning up the environment?  It's not.  It's making the situation worse.

After Tony started working on this story for the Washington Post, FirstEnergy made an announcement that bolstered what I had been saying... PJM's transmission plan is increasing the production of coal-fired electricity in West Virginia.  FirstEnergy announced it was abandoning its goal to decrease its carbon emissions by 2030 by throttling back its Ft. Martin and Harrison coal-fired power plants near Morgantown.  FirstEnergy said it was necessary to abandon that goal because those resources were necessary to provide reliability in PJM.   In other words, FirstEnergy will throttle up its electricity production at those plants in order to provide supply to PJM's new transmission line that begins at the nearby 502 Junction substation and ends at No. Va.'s data center alley in Loudoun County.  Ft. Martin and Harrison directly connect to 502 Junction via dedicated 500kV transmission lines.  Also connecting directly to 502 Junction is the Longview coal-fired power plant in Morgantown and AEP's Mitchell coal-fired power plant in West Virginia's northern panhandle.  It's more than 5,000 MW of hot and dirty coal-fired electricity and if the line is constructed it's heading right for Northern Virginia, along with some smog and air pollution.  Data Centers are filthy!  And PJM is a filthy liar.

Along the way to No. Va., PJM's new coal-by-wire extension cord will expand existing transmission rights-of-way closer to homes, schools, parks and businesses.  Expanding existing easements makes it impossible for the utility to avoid sensitive things like they could if they were siting a new corridor.  Anyone living along the existing corridor, like the Gee family, is going to be steamrolled right over. 

The "using existing rights-of-way" propaganda is another huge PJM lie I brought up over and over during TEAC meetings.  It's a new easement all the way because it cannot be constructed within the existing corridor.

And guess what?  Along with new pollution and new land acquisition using eminent domain, West Virginians will PAY for this destruction/construction in higher electric bills, along with every other ratepayer in the PJM region.

And we get NOTHING for our trouble.  Virginia gets new tax revenue building things they can't power while crowing about how "clean" Virginia is, and the rest of us get the impacts and the bill.  We're NOT your sacrifice zone.

Washington Post reporter Tony Olivo did a fantastic job investigating and reporting on this story.  He spent a day with us here in Jefferson County and drove from one end of the county to the other meeting people, and Washington Post photographer Sal got lots of photos and drone footage along the way.  Then these two guys drove all the way out to 502 Junction and Morgantown to do the same there.  They spent an enormous amount of time on this story and it shows.

One of my favorite images in the story is the new solar "farm" near Charles Town taken from the drone.  It shows how the company building it scraped off all the vegetation and top soil and left nothing but bare earth and erosion that is killing the Shenandoah River.  Clean energy ain't so clean, is it?

And let's talk about that "clean energy", shall we?  Wind and solar cannot create the amount of electricity needed for new data centers, even if they cover Virginia with turbines and panels from end to end.  The data centers need a plentiful and reliable supply they can only get from fossil fuels.  A few solar panels on the roof of the data center won't do a thing to cure this problem.  It may only keep the lights on in the restroom... during the day.  Renewables cannot power our energy intensive society.  We're not replacing the generation we're shutting down in the name of carbon reduction, and there's no chance that we can ever catch up at this point.  Data centers are too big a drain and Virginia can't stop building them.

If you have any doubts, check out the Generation Fuel Mix pie chart on PJM's website at any time.  Renewables provide only a tiny slice of PJM's power supply and it will never change as long as we keep increasing power load with new data centers.

Bravo to Washington Post for exposing Virginia's dirty data center reality!

​And let's get to work, Jefferson County.  We've got a power line to stop!

This may be the first of several blogs with the same title.

I told you so, DOE!

It seems that one of the first merchant transmission projects that DOE gifted with a capacity contract has gone belly up because it couldn't find any other customers.

FACT:  Merchant transmission capacity contracts are NOT like painting Tom Sawyer's fence... just because the federal government is stupid enough to sign a capacity contract for service doesn't mean anyone else is equally stupid.

Last October, the U.S. Department of Energy announced the first three recipients to be granted transmission capacity contracts paid for by taxpayers.  And I blogged about it here.

Taxpayer funded merchant transmission capacity contracts for projects that have no other customers DO NOT inspire other buyers to sign a contract.

I've been telling DOE this since the dawn of this stupid idea.

But they didn't listen, being all concentrated on political nonsense and lacking common sense such as they are.

And this week, I was right.  The Twin States Clean Energy Link was cancelled.  It was cancelled because it couldn't find any other customers besides the U.S. DOE.  That's right, even when the DOE put up our tax dollars to support a merchant transmission project nobody needed, it still didn't inspire any other customers to sign up.  This experiment in propping up unneeded merchant transmission projects with taxpayer dollars is a miserable failure.

Undaunted, the DOE recently issued a second solicitation for more loser merchant transmission project contracts.

Sometimes you just can't fix stupid, especially when their pockets are full of Other People's Money.

Speculative merchant transmission projects are not viable.  Quit wasting our money, DOE!

Did I mention I TOLD YOU SO?

Someone sent me this article earlier this week.  It tries to pretend that Grain Belt Express has made some sort of regulatory or procedural progress... like it got things *approved*.  But the reality is that the only things GBE recently got was a well-deserved kick in the behind from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and a big nothing from the U.S. Department of Energy.  Big deal.  Must have been a slow news day... or just one ripe for propaganda and fake news.

​Let's go to the DOE thing first.

That's right... zero plus zero is still zero.  GBE is still a big, fat zero.  FAST-41 is supposed to be a government run program that "speeds up" the environmental review for selected projects.  Except, the government getting involved has never sped up anything!  Government slows everything because of its pendulous rules and process.  GBE's Environmental Impact Statement has already been underway for more than a year, and it's already at least 6 months behind schedule.  And there's no end in sight.  How would anyone even know if FAST-41 speeds up the GBE EIS, since it's already behind the non-FAST schedule?  This is just a waste of time and tax dollars, let's move on to FERC.

The article says

Say what?  Did this silly reporter even READ the FERC Order he's reporting on?  I'm thinking no, because no sane person would have read that Order and decided it was favorable to GBE.  What GBE got from FERC was nothing but a scolding.

We've known for quite a while that GBE was going to connect to MISO and AECI in Callaway County at the existing McCreedie subtation and also at a new substation it is sharing with Ranger Power's immense solar farm.  The new substation is called Burns.  Burns will be owned and built by incumbent utility Ameren (however I hear that Ranger Power bought the land and scraped all the topsoil off it before handing it over to Ameren).  Ameren has been ordered to build this substation and connect both Ranger Power and GBE by regional grid operator MISO.  Ameren cannot refuse to build it.   In addition, MISO's studies determined that there needs to be two new 345kV high-voltage transmission lines from the new Burns substation to the existing Montgomery substation (in Montgomery Co.) in order for GBE to connect.  The existing line cannot carry enough power and new ones must be built.  Ameren has also been ordered to build these new transmission lines, although GBE must pay for them.

GBE's interconnection to MISO was subject to a Transmission Connection Agreement between the parties.  The TCA is a pretty standard thing that relies in large part on MISO's filed tariff with FERC.  TCAs can be negotiated somewhat and once they are complete, they are filed with FERC for approval.  Except GBE could not agree with MISO on a number of issues so MISO filed the TCA with FERC unexecuted (unsigned).  FERC approved that unsigned TCA.  GBE had asked FERC to make several changes to the TCA and force MISO to do certain things, and for FERC to make Ameren hurry up and build the new transmission lines that GBE needs to make its connection at Burns.  FERC declined to make any of GBE's suggested changes and told GBE it was not necessary to tell Ameren to hurry up.  GBE got NOTHING it asked for here.  GBE was legally smacked upside the head.  FERC has sided with its regional transmission organization, MISO, on all issues.  This really isn't novel or different.  FERC always sides with its pet RTOs.  GBE is just stupid if it thinks it can challenge MISO and get a different result.  Maybe now Polsky will get a clue about why they "don't hear from them" on all the complaints Invenergy has filed against MISO?

Although the TCA was approved by FERC, it doesn't do anything to make GBE's connection happen faster.  It's still scheduled for, maybe, 2030.  GBE had asked FERC to force MISO to connect some smaller portion of capacity in 2027.  Not happening.

Why is this such an issue for GBE?  Here's a quote from the Order:

That's right, folks!  MISO ordered Ameren to build new transmission lines to be in service in 2028 and 2030 for the purpose of importing wind and solar energy from Iowa to Missouri and Illinois.  These regionally planned lines are cost allocated to all ratepayers in MISO.  This means that the cost to use them is going to be considerably LESS than the bloated $7B merchant transmission Grain Belt Express.  In fact, ratepayers are going to be paying for the new Ameren lines, even if they choose to use GBE instead.  Let's see... renewable energy on new lines you pay for OR renewable energy on the GBE, which costs a lot more, and then you STILL have to pay for the Ameren lines anyhow.  Doesn't take an energy trader to figure out that problem.

The Ameren lines will be cheaper.  Therefore, GBE is in a big hurry to try to get its bloated behemoth online before Ameren gets those lines built.  Looks like that's not going to be possible.

GBE is stripped bare... it's too expensive and obsolete.  Who would want to be a customer?  And, speaking of customers, GBE still does not have negotiated rate authority to try to find any.  No matter though... GBE can't connect its project until at least 2030, when there will be better options for renewable energy transmission service in MISO.