Looks like GBE's game of Permit Wack-A-Mole is back in full swing!
Maybe the PSC ought to take a gander at GBE's website and compare that to the project they thought they approved several years ago. Gone are the Kansas wind farms and solar panels. In fact there's no mention of any generation in southwestern Kansas, of any kind. Therefore, what's going to be "collected" on the GBE AC Collector lines the Kansas Corporation Commission recently approved? Without wind turbines or solar panels, what's there to collect? Is Kansas going to build five new large nuclear or gas-fired power plants there? What good is GBE's extension cord when it no longer plugs into anything?
Yeah, we all know that GBE is simply pulling on another sheep costume and trying to remake itself as an "all of the above" energy source transmission line so as to escape notice of the Trumpian sheep dogs. And maybe they'd have gotten away with it, too, except Missouri AG Andrew Bailey just hand delivered a letter to the Secretary of the Department of Energy yesterday, asking that the DOE rescind the "conditional" loan approval it was granted by Biden's goons on their way out the door.
Without the wind turbines, Grain Belt Express no longer even pretends to qualify for the loan it applied for, which was only for projects that "reduce greenhouse gases."
Grain Belt Express LLC, (the Applicant), applied for federal financial assistance via a loan guarantee from the United States (U.S.) Department of Energy (DOE) Loan Programs Office (LPO) under Title XVII of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPAct) (42 U.S. Code [U.S.C.] 16513), as amended. Section 1703 of Title XVII (the Clean Energy Financing Program) defines eligible projects as those that, “avoid, reduce, or sequester air pollutants or anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases [GHGs]; and employ new or significantly improved technologies as compared to commercial technologies in service in the United States at the time the guarantee is issued” (Public Law [P.L.] 109-58, Section 1703(a)).
GBE is gas lighting everyone now pretending to be an energy source for data centers. Since GBE won't be connected to any source of energy, I'm pretty sure they're not interested. If a data center is looking for cheap energy from Kansas, it can locate... in Kansas! It doesn't need to pay GBE a bunch of extra money to ship electricity to Missouri so it can locate in Missouri. As much electricity as data centers use they can't afford to pay extra for unnecessary transmission.
GBE is an idea that has long outlived its usefulness. It's not even logical anymore. It's just a giant extension cord that doesn't connect with anything on either end. No generation. No customers. Just a bunch of exaggerations and half truths. Let's hope AG Bailey can finally get to the bottom of it.