Blog Archives

Censorship and Propaganda Will Fail

3/30/2022

People will always oppose new infrastructure that disturbs their life and imposes burdens without benefits. The push for renewable energy is running headlong into push back from the people. How renewable energy proponents deal with this push back is key to actually achieving renewable energy goals. Censorship and propaganda are not an effective weapon. Instead, smart developers will put their energy into avoiding impacts altogether. If there are little to no impacts on the people, the people simply won't care enough to form entrenched and formidable opposition groups that are increasingly successful in stopping projects with outsized impacts. No opposition translates into successful projects. Stop waving your red cape at the bull.

Like this NPR article about "misinformation." NPR asserts

In between posts selling anti-wind yard signs and posts about public meetings opposing local wind projects, there were posts that spread false, misleading and questionable information about wind energy.

Says who?

NPR sent Facebook a sampling of the posts from anti-renewable community pages. Facebook spokesman Kevin McAlister said in an emailed statement, "We take action against content that our fact-checking partners rate false as part of our comprehensive strategy to keep viral, provably false claims from spreading on our apps. The examples shared with us don't appear to meet that threshold as they have only even been shared a handful of times over a period of several years."

Who are these Facebook fact-checkers and what makes them experts with so much knowledge that they wield the power to shut down free speech that they find unacceptable? What ever happened to this concept?

Freedom of speech was the first amendment made to our Constitution:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Except Facebook isn't the government. It's a social media experiment that has become victim of its own success. Social media is for spreading the ideas and opinions of individuals to a wider audience assembled by the wonders of technology. It was never intended to be an encyclopedia of facts. But then the easy dissemination of ideas and opinions by real people started to get political. Dumb people with too much time on their hands began to debate, okay argue, on Facebook about politics... as if reading blather on an internet platform ever changed someone's opinion, or vote. Political beings needed to win their ridiculous political arguments, so they began to tilt the playing field to get a little extra help. They believed ad hominems to be helpful; an attack on the person with the idea, instead of the idea itself. But even that didn't quite work, so they upped the ante by simply removing these people's right to free speech by labeling their ideas "misinformation." And then they devolved into simply canceling these people by removing them from internet society altogether. Facebook, for its part, is a willing participant in this game. And it's all political. When did we start allowing political opinion to run our lives and ruin our social relationships? It think it happened right around the time 24/7 cable news shows invaded our homes. And its creeping invasion has slowly spread into today's abridging of free speech through "misinformation" claims that attempt to control your very thoughts. Simply telling someone that you don't like their idea or opinion is no longer sufficient. Instead they seek to burn those kind of unacceptable thoughts out of your brain through punishment and social isolation.

Thinkpol are no longer scary fiction. They're here, and they infiltrate every segment of our society. But no matter how hard they try, they will never erase independent thought.

There's more "misinformation" spread by renewable energy and transmission proponents than by its opposition. But control comes from claiming Thinkpol status and making biased determinations of what is true or false. It's not about facts though, it's about opinion. It's about erasing those thoughts that don't agree with the government's determination that you must sacrifice your home and your property so that other people can benefit without sacrificing their own homes and property. It's sanctimonious elitism at its finest.

But the people will continue to resist. An epic battle is brewing. Who will win is not as important as who will lose. We all lose when land use battles waste enormous amounts of money, time and energy. But what if we never have this battle at all? What if all the effort currently being poured into censorship and propaganda was instead directed at developing new energy solutions that didn't require any sacrifice? Smaller, localized energy sources where the impacts are visited on the beneficiaries have been rejected in favor of massive production and massive impacts. Why? Because certain elite are going to make massive profits owning and operating them. This includes new electric transmission, where there's lots of money to be made by creating a "need" that wouldn't exist if energy was produced where it is used.

Censorship and propaganda is eroding our basic freedoms, but it can never truly control our thoughts or our right to peaceably assemble and petition our government for a redress of grievances. There are better options than continuing our messy slide down the very slippery slope to totalitarianism.

Think about it... while you still can.

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Averages Don't Keep The Lights On

3/26/2022

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Here's a story that will scare you right to the core. The Midcontinent Independent System Operator says its system is volatile. What does that mean? Check out this article. It's what the mainstream media isn't telling you. As more and more variable generators are built, it's getting harder and harder to keep the lights on.

And there's this quote, which probably deserves some sort of speaking truth to power award:

“I caution you about averages,” Schug said. “Our extremes are much higher.”

That's right! All the "reports" and "studies" that claim we can run our country on 100% renewable energy are based on averages. Because renewables only produce when conditions are right, they are averaged together to produce an average amount of generation on paper. But MISO doesn't operate the grid on paper. It must balance load with generation in real time. Extremes happen in real time, not averages. As MISO continues to lose fossil fuel generators that can run when called, and replaces them with renewables that only run when they want to run, the amount of available generation MISO can call to serve load shrinks.

Wayne Schug, MISO’s vice president of strategy and business development, said a growing renewables fleet and rapidly changing weather is driving increasing volatility and an “inability to deal with it.”

By 2030, as little as 57% of the RTO’s fleet could be dispatchable, staff said. Dispatchable resources accounted for 84% of the fleet in 2020.

Schug said that since 2017, average daily output swings and forecasting errors have grown by gigawatts and percentages points, respectively. He said while the grid operator continues to get better at output forecasting, the expanding wind fleet has blotted out any signs of improvement.

If we're cutting the amount of dispatchable generation, what are we also doing to cut load? Not a thing. We're actually trying to add to load by switching to electric cars and heating. We're trying to add the entire energy load currently carried by natural gas and oil to the electric grid. A grid that already has trouble keeping up!

Reality is screaming here and nobody is paying attention.

Moeller said that for three days in 2020, MISO’s entire wind fleet in the upper Midwest failed to generate a megawatt. He also said unexpected cloud cover could make a solar farm “disappear within three minutes.”

Joundi said MISO is working with an aging generation fleet more prone to outages with increasingly uncertain return-to-service dates. He said the footprint’s current rate of generation retirement — propelled, in part, by state and federal policies — is outpacing members’ capacity replacements.
Staff expects the number of emergency near-misses to rise every year, Joundi said.

Joundi said that the control room now manages more intra-hour instability and intensifying “wind droughts,” where wind output drops off below forecasts.

Director Mark Johnson asked staff to invite a control room operator to a board meeting to address their recent experiences dealing with grid volatility.

I think we need to institute mandatory control room field trips for every blithe young environmentalist who insists we can become completely carbon free in just a few years by relying on wind and solar. Ditto for the lazy journalists who parrot this political prevarication because they're simply afraid that the monster they have created will cancel them if they tell the truth.

The averages only work on paper. The big idea that we can build a "national grid" to instantly ship excess renewable generation anywhere in the country also only works on paper. Renewables are not dispatchable. Importing power from other regions to keep the lights on during renewable volatility can only rely on dispatchable generation, like that produced by fossil fuels. But as we build more renewables and shut down more fossil fuels, we continue to make our power supply more and more volatile. You can't "borrow" power from a region that doesn't have enough to share because its own renewables aren't producing. If making a regional grid even 50% reliant on variable renewables like wind and solar requires the grid to import vast quantities of electricity from other regional grids, what's going to happen when all the regional grids are at 50% renewables? Who is left to supply the power at times when no region is producing enough, like after dark? You cannot rely on wind to pick up enough after dark to carry the entire solar load, and it's dark from coast to coast for a significant number of hours every day. Batteries, you say? Not mature enough yet. They can't store enough power, are very expensive, use many rare and toxic elements mined by slave labor in countries that hate us, and are not recyclable or sustainable. Wind and solar alone just can't cut it.

It's simply fantasy. Crazy, destructive fantasy!

And then the lights go out.

Don't ask an environmentalist or academic if we can provide 24/7 reliable power from 100% renewable energy sources. That's like asking a heart surgeon to fix your electric car. Ask someone who actually dispatches power and balances the grid. These folks are performing increasing acts of magic to keep the lights on and nobody is listening to their warnings because they prefer to revel is fantasy and "averages."

Is it going to take rolling black outs for this story to be told? Or will we just be asked to "suck it up" to save the planet when it does?

“We face a rapidly transforming energy landscape,” CEO John Bear told directors during a Board Week meeting, warning of a delicate load-supply balance.

He said when MISO introduced its ancillary services market 12 years ago, “load was the only thing that was moving around.”
“Everything else was pretty static and predictable,” Bear said. “Where we stand is not sustainable, and it’s not safe. We have a lot of work in front of us.”

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Step Right Up! Get Your Snake Oil Here!

3/25/2022

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Agri-Pulse Communications, who aspires to be "the most trusted farm and rural policy source in Washington, D.C., providing a balanced perspective on a wide variety of issues including the farm bill, nutrition, trade, food safety, environment, biotechnology, organic, conservation and crop insurance" has some snake oil to sell you.

Agri-Pulse Communications, Inc. is pleased to lead a webinar to discuss how expanding, integrating, and modernizing the North American high-voltage grid can drive rural economic development. Speakers will highlight the good-paying jobs that expanding high-voltage transmission will create, in addition to improved electricity affordability, reliability and sustainability.

What good paying jobs? Building high voltage electric transmission is a specialized skill that is contracted through a handful of national companies. There are no local jobs for unskilled labor building new transmission. It's not going to make your electricity any more affordable either. Those lines don't get built for free. Electric consumers pay for them in their electric bills. If they build billions worth of new transmission, you're going to pay for it. Reliability and sustainability don't belong in the same sentence. Wind and solar is not reliable. And, besides, isn't your power already reliable? Why would you want to pay for increased "reliability" you don't need?

But the biggest lie: economic development. The new transmission will cut through prime farmland, placing an impediment in the production line. In exchange, farmers will get "fair market value" for a tiny strip of land whose use as a transmission right of way ruins the entire field. And just in case you're thinking, "Oh, heck no!", you won't have a choice. The transmission (or pipeline) company will apply for eminent domain authority and your state utility commission may hand this out like a party favor. How does any of this "help" a farmer? It doesn't. Not.At.All.

Even more insulting, these folks think you're a bunch of ignorant rubes who can be easily fooled. Do they believe if they just tell you it's beneficial, that you will fall all over yourselves to get some?

Got an hour to kill next week? Sign up for this "webinar."

It probably won't be interactive so that you can tell these snake oil salesmen what snakes really want, but at least you'll be prepared for the sales pitch when they show up in your town like a traveling circus.

And if you don't like what you hear during the webinar, be sure to tell Agri-Pulse exactly what you think about their participation in this shameful scheme to take advantage of rural folks, and if they keep hanging out with these snake oil salesmen and helping to peddle the snake oil that they may no longer be trusted by the rural communities that financially support their company.

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Putting Congress in CHARGE of Energy Regulation

3/25/2022

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Honestly, these guys just don't know how to play fair. Several special interest groups have written a new law that ensures they will get their way in an ongoing FERC rulemaking. Congress writes law. Agencies write regulations that become the nuts and bolts of how the law Congress makes is carried out.

Last year, FERC opened a rulemaking to make new regulations governing interstate transmission planning, cost allocation and generator interconnection. FERC claimed its existing regulations had become unjust and unreasonable and no longer comported with the law Congress had made. That's justification enough to change the regulations.

FERC sought comments on its new transmission rulemaking. Lots of concerned companies, groups, and government officials responded, including a group of consumer organizations with a history of defending themselves against unneeded, unwanted transmission projects. (See initial comments here, and reply comments here.) FERC has the issue under consideration and has said it hopes to release a proposed rule by the end of this year.

However, last week Senator Sheldon Whitehouse introduced legislation he called the CHARGE Act. (Connecting Hard-to-reach Areas with Renewably Generated Energy - Maybe they're only hard to reach because they are energy parasites who refuse to create any energy in their own back yards?). The CHARGE Act is "endorsed by Public Citizen, Earthjustice, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), New Consensus, Grid Strategies, and Digital Climate Action." And it sounds incredibly familiar. In fact, it's just a slimmed down version of these groups comments on FERC's transmission planning rulemaking docket. Instead of allowing FERC to finish its rulemaking docket, these special interest groups have attempted to short-circuit and second guess FERC's process by having Congress enshrine the rule they want into law. FERC might as well tear up all the stuff that hundreds of parties spent time and money creating... the spoiled babies are attempting an end run around FERC in order to get their own way in a FERC proceeding by going through Congress instead.

If this is the way things are going to proceed from now on, FERC might as well just stop doing anything except rubber stamping the political wish list of the party in power. That's pretty much what it has been doing since at least 2017, anyhow.

Maybe Congress needs to be reminded that when it created the DOE, it retained an impartial regulator (FERC) to be independent from DOE because the DOE was expected to be too political to regulate impartially and effectively?

At any rate, take a look at the CHARGE act and see if you can figure out who's missing from this FERC technical conference guest list:

(A) LEADERSHIP.—A technical conference convened under paragraph (1) may be led by the members of the Commission.
(B) PARTICIPATION.—The Commission may invite to participate in a technical conference convened under paragraph (1)
representatives of residential ratepayers, transmission providers,
environmental justice and equity groups, Tribal communities,
Independent System Operators,
Regional Transmission Organizations, consumer protection groups,
renewable energy advocates,
State utility commission and energy offices, and such other entities as the Commission determines appropriate.

This is a conference to determine transmission planning... what shall we build and where shall we build it? Who's missing? Landowners and affected communities. They are the biggest stakeholders of all because they will be forced against their will to host new transmission planned by all these NIMBYs at the technical conference. Of course they don't want to invite the people who are going to end up holding the hot potato of unwanted energy infrastructure to their conference. It's a club of the chosen who can decide to conscript your home, your business, your economic prosperity, and your future, without giving you a seat at the table.

Here's another... who is missing from this transmission advisory committee?

(b) REPRESENTATION.—The committee shall be composed of not more than 30 members, including--
(1) at least 2 representatives of end-use customers;
(2) at least 1 representative of transmission providers;
(3) at least 2 representatives of environmental justice and equity groups;
(4) at least 1 representative of Tribal communities;
(5) at least 1 representative of Independent System Operators;
(6) at least 1 representative of Regional Transmission Organizations;
(7) at least 1 representative of consumer protection groups;
(8) at least 2 representatives of renewable energy advocates;
(9) at least 1 representative of State commissions;
(10) at least 1 representative of public power entities;
(11) at least 1 representative of marketers; and
(12) at least 1 representative of generators.

Who's missing? Landowners and affected communities, again. The very people who would have to live with the new transmission.

It's not like they think landowners are represented by any of these groups. It's clear in another part of the bill that landowners and affected communities are something that must be communicated with.

(c) OFFICE OF PUBLIC PARTICIPATION.—The Commission shall consult the Office of Public Participation during the rulemaking process under subsection (a), including with respect to--(1) guidance on public participation requirements; (2) communications with the public concerning transmission planning that may impact local communities and land owners, including Tribal, indigenous, and environmental justice communities; and (3) minimum data transparency and access requirements.

The landowners and affected communities don't get invited to any committees or conferences though. And it's not like they are excluding the entire public, just landowners and affected communities. Tribal and environmental justice communities are both recognized as "the public" AND ALSO included in the committees and conferences (go ahead, compare to the first two quotes I included). This is obviously on purpose in order to exclude these very important stakeholders like they don't matter.

And then they wonder why transmission opposition forms and ends up cancelling or delaying their project?

I miss democracy.

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Energy Independence Means Producing Your Own Energy

3/24/2022

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How do you know when Grain Belt Express has jumped the shark? When the arguments for it turn into a politics du jour soup that make absolutely no sense.

Case in point... this op ed in the extremely biased Missouri Times (still operating in a darkened bar?).

The author drones on about energy security, energy independence and energy affordability, but I'm not sure he even understands the terms.

Energy independence means producing your own energy instead of relying on someone else to produce it and import it for your use. Grain Belt Express is not an example of energy independence. It's an effort to make Missouri reliant on imported energy from western Kansas and the Oklahoma panhandle. If Missouri replaces its local energy generators with energy imported from hundreds of miles away that depends on just one overhead transmission line across severe weather prone territory, how is that independent? It is the epitome of dependence on far away generators that cannot produce energy when called that is reliant on exposed and fragile wires.

Energy security? Ditto. The most secure energy system is one where power is produced where it is used. Relying on an 800 mile transmission line is the epitome of insecurity. Energy security also means that power is there when you need it, 24/7, not reliant on the vagaries of weather.

And then there's energy affordability. The Missouri Times uses some really out of date figures to assert that Missouri municipalities will save $12.8M per year if GBE is built. Those figures are more than 5 years out of date and relied on some numbers that no longer exist. GBE would only produce a "savings" if it replaced some existing municipal energy contracts. One of those was the outrageously expensive Prairie State contract that the municipalities signed in haste and repented at leisure until the contract expired last year. Did Prairie State actually get replaced with GBE? Nope... it couldn't. GBE still hasn't been fully permitted or built. Therefore the municipalities had to find another option for replacing that contract. No word about who, where, or how much, but I hope it wasn't as expensive as Prairie State. And, if it was not, then the $12.8M savings number collapses. When is MJMEUC going to do an up-to-date savings calculation using current costs? For all we know, using GBE to import energy from hundreds of miles away may be MORE EXPENSIVE than MJMEUC's current contract. Just the fact that the supposed "savings" have not been updated in more than 5 years tells you all you need to know about how affordable GBE will be. If it's such a great bargain, show me!

Missouri landowners cannot afford to have their productive farmland burdened with new rights of way taken using eminent domain. Missouri landowners cannot afford to have permanent impediments constructed in the middle of their businesses. Missouri landowners cannot afford to make a sacrifice so that an out-of-state energy company can make billions trying to sell power thousands of miles away to distribution utilities who don't want to purchase it.

And why should they when it's now possible to bury high voltage direct current transmission in existing rail and transportation rights of way and not have to cut new rights of way or take property using eminent domain?

There's a better solution on the horizon. It's time to retire the old technology of fly-over electric transmission. And it's high time to update Missouri eminent domain laws so that they are only used for a public use, not private profit.

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Who Is At Fault For Rising Transmission Rates?

3/23/2022

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Retail electric rates are rising in Kansas. In this story, the Kansas Corporation Commission tries to shift blame to the legislature, but that's not the whole story. Transmission rates are rising because more transmission is being proposed and built. More transmission is being proposed and built to support renewable energy facilities and the export of Kansas wind to other states. The KCC is the one who approves the building of these new transmission facilities. If the KCC stopped acting like a rubber stamp approving every new transmission facility proposed in Kansas, whether it benefits Kansans or not, then the rates would not increase. End of story. It's the KCC's fault and only the KCC can control rising transmission rates.

We're constantly being told that renewables will lower our electricity rates because they have no fuel costs. But that's not exactly accurate, as the rising transmission fees in Kansas demonstrate. Connecting new renewable generators requires new and updated transmission, and much of the new transmission is being built to export renewable power to other states. Why should Kansans pay to export power that others will use? The Kansas state government loves new wind installations because they supposedly provide new "economic development" and jobs. But they don't really. Once built, there are few jobs. Even construction jobs aren't given to Kansans, but to a handful of national specialty companies that build high voltage electric transmission. Do renewable generators pay more taxes to localities? This is an open-ended question as generators are always looking to abate their tax liability or secure payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) deals. So, what exactly is Kansas getting from all this? Well, I suppose elected officials get generous campaign contributions from renewable energy companies, but the average Kansan is getting zip.

In the news article, the KCC blames statute KSA 66-1237. The statute says

Any electric utility subject to the regulation of the state corporation commission pursuant to K.S.A. 66-101, and amendments thereto, may seek to recover costs associated with transmission of electric power, in a manner consistent with the determination of transmission-related costs from an order of a regulatory authority having legal jurisdiction, through a separate transmission delivery charge included in customers' bills.

Who is the regulatory authority with legal jurisdiction to set interstate transmission rates? The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. States have no jurisdiction over interstate transmission rates but must pass the rate set by FERC through to customers. The state is not permitted to "trap" costs that FERC says the transmission owners may recover by denying them. This is clear in Evergy's filing at the KCC:

Company shall collect from applicable customers a Transmission Delivery Charge (TDC) based on its annual transmission revenue requirement (ATRR) for costs to be recovered under the following schedules of the Open Access Transmission Tariff for Service Offered by the Southwest Power Pool (SPP) for service to Company’s retail KCC-Jurisdictional customers.

The TDC Unit Charges included on the following sheets are designed to recover the retail transmission revenue requirement. The Company shall file to adjust TDC Unit Charges to reflect and track changes in FERC-approved rates for charges included in the ATRR according to the terms of this rate schedule.

The transmission rates in the TDC are set by FERC and collected pursuant to Southwest Power Pool tariffs.

Put the blame where it belongs... the overbuilding of interstate transmission projects ordered by SPP for benefit of the region as a whole, not just Kansans.

So, the next time you hear that your electric bill is going to go down if you use more renewable energy, remember this! The cost of building new generators and transmission to connect them will make your bill increase. Will your bill increase more than the lowered fuel costs you may receive from using more renewable energy? Of course. This story is undeniable proof.

Renewable energy profiteers, environmental groups and the federal government have a problem. When regular folks realize that renewables are actually increasing their electric bills, then renewables won't be so popular any longer. They really were hoping to keep the lid on the problem until they got all this stuff built and it was too late to change course. But with transmission rates being what they are, the cost increases happen in real time. The best they can do now is try to shift blame everywhere except where it really belongs.

It belongs to those who approve the building of new transmission for the purpose of exporting renewable electricity hundreds or thousands of miles from remote locations.

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Kansas Rises Again

3/17/2022

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Kansas is once again back in the fight against Grain Belt Express.

This news report says the Nemeha County Commission has decided not to modify its current moratorium on wind energy projects to allow the Grain Belt Express.

There's no word on how this might affect the project, but this may be the current scene at Invenergy headquarters.

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PATH Must Pay For Its Own Advertising and Influencing

3/17/2022

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Mandate. What a lovely word!

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued its mandate today.

Our petition for review is granted, the portions of FERC's Opinions 554-A and 554-B that authorized PATH to book the disputed expenditures in accounts other than Account 426.4 are vacated, and the case is remanded to FERC for further proceedings consistent with the Court's opinion.

You can read the Court's amended opinion here.

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DOE Embarks on "Study" with Foregone Conclusion

3/16/2022

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Another day, another stilted and biased "whole of government" attempt to ignore the hoi polloi.

The U.S. DOE hosted a webinar on the National Transmission Study it is about to engage in yesterday. On its website, DOE says the study will

identify transmission that will provide broad-scale benefits to electric customers; inform regional and interregional transmission planning processes; and identify interregional and national strategies to accelerate decarbonization while maintaining system reliability.

So it's not IF we need more transmission. The conclusion has already been reached. We must have new transmission they say, we just have to figure out what and where to build. Err... don't you think that's a little "cart before pony"? Maybe you should first figure out what you need and where, before you decide to build stuff willy-nilly?

DOE says its study will not identify specific corridors in which to build transmission. But it will identify "clean energy zones" to connect. How does this happen? DOE says it will build a list of localities that currently allow industrial scale energy generators to be built. Well, that's going to be a task that never ends because the list of communities that have banned industrial solar and wind "farms" grows every time they propose another one. Proposal = new laws against = cancelled proposal. And your government wants to construct plans to connect "clean energy zones" 20 years in the future. It's like a very expensive hall of mirrors... propose new generator... build new transmission... cancel new generator and transmission. It just doesn't work!

So, these folks went on for two hours about how they're going to do their study and how "stakeholders" and "communities, and regional and local governments" will participate in crafting the study. Except there were no local communities or governments represented, and DOE refused to answer any questions along these lines. DOE suggested that it will take "nominations" for the study committee, but was very vague about how that process would happen, or where/how nominations could be made.

In fact, the whole thing has the distinct smell of pay to play, where decisions and participants have already been decided. No actual public need show up or apply. One dead give away was the way they managed the Q&A during the webinar. Each participant could only see his/her own questions submitted. You could not see the questions of any other participants (which would be helpful to avoid duplication, right?). It was quite convenient that when it came time to answer questions, the DOE somehow found a pile of softball questions that they did not attribute to any participant. It's almost like the DOE crafted its own questions in advance, and then "answered" them with canned answers also prepared in advance. How is this "public participation"? It's not. Not at all. It's the appearance of public participation so that DOE can check that box somewhere down the line and say that its process was open and inclusive, even though it's not.

There's a reason DOE does not plan or permit new transmission. It's because DOE is the political arm of our federal energy agencies. Everything it does is driven by politics, not science. And real public participation punches so many holes in DOE's pay to play processes that it can't afford to actually be transparent. The inmates are running the asylum!

DOE says it will have another "public" webinar about its study in October. Meanwhile, you can send them your comments via their website.

Go ahead, try it.

It doesn't want to know who you are or how to contact you. It just wants you to check a few boxes and type some nonsense into a few boxes on the form. It's more like an entertainment feature for the masses. Bad day at the office? Comment to DOE! Cat puke in your shoes? Comment to DOE! Get a flat tire? Comment to DOE! Whatever goes on in your daily life, go ahead and unload on the DOE. Shouldn't it be about energy? Of course not... the virtual trash can at DOE where all these public comments end up doesn't care what you type. Have fun! Release stress! Get creative! Nobody is actually reading it.

Does our government think if it ignores the public that we'll go away? Fat chance. Get used to us, we're going to be on you like flies on .....!

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Citizens Trying To Participate In Their Own Government Disparaged At U.S. DOE Committee Meeting

3/11/2022

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A trio of grassroots transmission opponents signed up for a U.S. Department of Energy webinar for a public meeting of the DOE's Electricity Advisory Committee this week. If you want to know what your government is doing with energy policy, you need to get the info. If you want to shape the policy being made (instead of trying to change the policy after it's been put in place without your knowledge) you need to participate in your own government.

Our government is great at "transparency" and getting better all the time. The only thing is that they are also getting better at letting the industry control the policy and allowing people who stand to personally gain from the policy to create it. Combining transparency with pay to play is an eye opening experience.

Also eye opening is the way the industry disparages ordinary folks when they think you're not listening. When a citizen who has patiently listened to industry and government political ring kissing and flowery business buzzwords and unicorn stories about energy for 10 hours is finally allowed a mere 3 minutes to make comment, it's like somebody suddenly crapped in the punch bowl.

The U.S. DOE has several "advisory committees" that are supposed to help them guide policy. Committee members are selected from the energy industry, with a handful of governmental employees and elected officials thrown in for balance. However the vast majority of these committee members are from the very industry that would profit from the policies developed. When asked for documents regarding the selection and appointment of these special committee members, DOE refuses to part with this information. Mystery committees with a financial stake in the policy being created. Is there something very wrong with that? You bet'cha!

Anyhow, the EAC has been around for years, but it normally meets in person and no ordinary citizen wants to fly to DC to listen in. But COVID has helped expose what's actually going on by taking these meetings virtual, as it's done for many other previously opaque processes.

During this meeting, several participants expressed concern that they wouldn't be able to get any big, new transmission done and should instead concentrate on using existing rights of way to increase power transfers. That's all fine and good. Most landowners don't get tweaked about upgrading existing infrastructure. But what foments costly and time consuming opposition is new transmission on new rights of way across private property, especially farmland where the owner's income is dependent upon the use of his land. You wouldn't take away a carpenter's toolbox and tell him he'll make just as much money without it, would you? Then why tell a farmer that taking away the land where he grows food, and placing dangerous impediments across it, doesn't affect his business? Burying new transmission on existing rail and road rights of way is the sensible solution to building new transmission without the drag of costly opposition. There's actually a fully-formed business plan to install the first of these revolutionary new projects, and it has not been met with stiff opposition.

Also, there was some talk about the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act provision for allowing the DOE to become a paying "anchor tenant" on speculative merchant transmission projects.

And, finally, the arrogant elite committee clique's disdain for ordinary folks was put on full display by several committee members. One commented:

Also need to ensure that this program engages and educates the NIMBY/BANANA/CAVE stakeholders.

Another delightful exchange:

Education & outreach is cross-cutting across all the scenarios and is a great idea.

The "WHO" needs to be able to bind people to building the lines.

And to bind parties away from blocking the lines.

I think it is these arrogant bags of wind who need to be "educated." They don't know that you can't change public opinion with propaganda disguised as "education." It's a waste of time and money and probably as useful as a unicorn fart for changing the world.

They got pretty into bashing grassroots opposition to new transmission, oblivious to the public presence watching them prance and dance in a good ol' back slapping shindig that can only be made merrier by disparaging other people not present. Just remember, this is your government at work!

Perhaps they simply didn't notice that the DOE had reserved the last 20 minutes of the webinar for "public comment." Or maybe they didn't think any public would comment on their disgusting behavior?

Whoopsie!

Public Comment from Keryn Newman:

I do not see anyone on the EAC that is representing the interests of the communities and landowners who will be affected by new transmission and electric infrastructure. During yesterday’s webinar, I noted that several speakers expressed concern that new transmission could not be built in a timely fashion due to siting and permitting issues. Community and landowner opposition is perhaps the largest impediment to getting new infrastructure built in a timely fashion. I urge DOE and/or this committee to consider that burial of new transmission on existing rail or road rights of way may be an appropriate path forward. Building new transmission that does not take new land, or visit lasting visual impacts upon host communities, does not foment community and landowner opposition. Without opposition, siting and permitting can happen much faster. It’s the sensible solution.

Public Comment from Martha Peine (that's pronounced "pine-e", not "peen", BTW):

Communities and landowners affected by new transmission and electric infrastructure are not represented on the EAC. It may be that when the committee was formed, no one considered affected communities and landowners would have the expertise required to help guide the DOE’s involvement in transmission planning. However, many do become true experts on issues of necessity and environmental impacts when their way of life is threatened. That opposition is then successful because the evidence is on their side.

I believe the burial of new transmission on existing rights of way would meet with less resistance provided it is necessary. The IIJA provision that allows, and the committee’s consideration of, making the DOE an anchor tenant on merchant projects does raise a red flag as to necessity. Are these merchant projects roads to nowhere built to deliver electricity that no one wants? This could end up being a bill taxpayers get stuck with for up to 40 years in exchange for nothing.

Again, the burial of new transmission on existing rights of way will meet with less resistance provided it is truly necessary. Siting and permitting could then happen much faster.

And finally, and in response to the second day citizen disparagement:

Comment of Mary Mauch:

I would like to address the following comment Tom Bialek made in the chat comments of today's session. Tom wrote:

"Also need to ensure that the program engages and educates the NIMBY/BANANA/CAVE stakeholders."

Does this disparaging of concerned and educated taxpayer/ratepayer stakeholders reflect this committee's attitude? Who is really responsible for creating "equity" in this "deploy, deploy, deploy" energy transition? Respecting, including, and listening to the voices of educated citizen stakeholders might actually yield far better results than disrespecting and marginalizing them. After all, they're most likely the ones living in the "remote" industrial wind/solar plants and being forced to "host" private, speculative transmission lines and have researched and observed some of the TRUE costs to "remote" communities, non-renewable prime farmland, and the "remote" wildlife and environment.

"Equity must be at the forefront of energy transition across all domains."

You could literally hear all the air being sucked out of the virtual room as the helpful DOE employee read the public comments into the webinar. NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing Near Anyone) and CAVE (Citizens Against Virtually Everything) name caller Tom Bialek was quick to jump up and try to defend himself. He claimed it was not a disparaging comment or meant in a mean way and claimed to respect these citizens so much. Right... the same way you'd respect a person of color by using a racial slur. These acronyms are meant to belittle and marginalize all citizen activism in an ad hominem fashion.... an argument directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining. Now, if our friend Tom had used his acronyms to refer to people of color in environmental justice communities, maybe DOE would have kicked him off their committee (well, maybe, it remains to be seen whether there are any standards at all for these greedy bullies). But there's something quite distasteful here that seems to violate new governmental equity standards when people are called disparaging names by their own government. Not helpful. Not constructive. In fact, it actually inspires opposition. Thanks, Tom, you're a pal!

An uncomfortable moment of silence ensued before Kimberly from the American Gas Association stepped up to make excuses against burial of electric transmission. She claimed to know "these people". Sorry, sweetcheeks, you don't know us. Not AT ALL. If you meant to imply that we've also opposed gas pipelines, you're totally wrong. If you meant it in a "these NIMBYs are all alike" fashion, you'd still be wrong. People like Kimberly have NO IDEA what motivates us, how we operate, and how we develop our strategies. Then Kimberly said that third party contractors dig up gas pipelines all the time rather than call 811 and therefore buried electric cables would be carelessly cut by contractors resulting in power outages so we shouldn't bury them. Well, I have to give Kimberly a "C" for creativity. I haven't actually heard that excuse before. But it IS an excuse and nothing more. If that's your argument, Kimberly, then why aren't gas pipelines run overhead to avoid random digging? And why don't we hear about more tragedies involving contractors punching holes in gas pipelines? Or contractors in cities electrocuting themselves digging into existing buried lines? Maybe that's because it's made up bull-oney?

Someone called for more public comments, sort of the way you cool off soup by adding ice cubes to your bowl, but there were none to be had. Uncomfortable silence ensued while they all admired...

Hey... here's another opportunity to participate in your own government, and it's happening in only 4 days, Tuesday, March 15! Register here!

DOE is preparing its new Transmission Study. In the study DOE will identify new transmission corridors where it may use its new authority to override state permitting. Essentially, it's a free-for-all for transmission developers to pick where they want to build stuff and have their every wish granted. Is it going to be in YOUR back yard? Find out by attending the webinar. DOE says,

"In partnership with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, DOE will collaborate with industry stakeholders, communities, and regional and local governments to help identify pathways for necessary large-scale transmission system buildouts that meet regional and national interests."

DOE is going to collaborate with "communities" but none of the "communities" have any notice of this. It sounds rather one sided to me, unless the "community" shows up at the webinar and makes public comment. Even if your community is not affected, speak out anyhow. Don't you wish someone had spoken out against the transmission line that got dropped on you before you knew about it?

This new "whole of government" thing... does that really mean that everything is now being decided exclusively by the government and its chosen elite oligarchs? Are you only invited to "participate" so you can be belittled, marginalized and insulted?

Our government should be ashamed of itself. Well, if it still wants to pretend to be a democracy...

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DOE Embarks on "Study" with Foregone Conclusion

Citizens Trying To Participate In Their Own Government Disparaged At U.S. DOE Committee Meeting

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