Arrogant TV Host Says Landowners "Sound like D*cks"

We all know that the media is uninformed about transmission, and that they carry the water for "clean energy" companies and progressive politics.  The whole "green is good" thing has been slowly changing our thinking for decades through the use of propaganda.  Most people don't even think about it anymore, they simply accept it and believe that "green" can do no wrong.  Except, what happens when some pundit pretends to take a deep dive into "our power grid" but ends up spewing misinformation and ad hominem attacks?

It's not like it's mainstream news, however it was broadcast on HBO.  Millions of people saw it.  And it's complete and utter crap.

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver did a story about "the power grid" on Sunday.  I didn't watch it.  I don't watch HBO.  But, someone who did tipped me off about it.  I found a video of the show on YouTube.  Here it is.

*Warning*  Extremely salty language and jokes.  If you're going to be offended, perhaps you should skip it.

Before I get into the really offensive part of this stupid propaganda, let's briefly go over the points he got wrong.

1. He included generators as part of "our power grid."  And then he went on about Texageddon and blamed it on transmission.  Fact:  It wasn't transmission that failed, but generators.  The generators went out of service because they froze.  They froze because they were not adequately winterized.  They were not adequately winterized because Texas stupidly thought paying generators that were winterized more when they could produce would encourage generators to winterize.  That did not happen.  Generators are greedy, they didn't want to spend the money now in exchange for a hot pay day sometime in the future.  Perhaps.
   
2. No real recognition of the difference between the transmission system and the distribution system.  Showed distribution lines when talking about transmission.  Failed to mention that 99% of the power failures we experience are due to a fault on the distribution system.  Failed to recognize that building more transmission takes money away from the distribution system, causing even more failures.  Here's a fact he's completely oblivious to:  Investor Owned Utilities build transmission because it's more profitable due to incentives and increased return on investment.  IOUs use stated rates for distribution companies.  That means that the utility gets a set amount of money every year based on a snapshot of costs when the rate is set.    How the utility uses that money is up to the utility.  Nobody checks to see that the money goes to the places stated in the original rate case.  So since a utility can use the rate money it receives any way it likes, utilities are constantly cutting their Operations and Maintenance budgets so they can use that money elsewhere... say for executive bonuses, or shareholder dividends.  Listen to any IOU earnings call to hear how the utility is cutting O&M.  When the utility cuts O&M, maintenance doesn't happen, and then distribution lines fail.  I actually listened to a lineman at a public hearing one time describe how the utility will ignore the proactive replacement of failing parts, until they fail completely.  They do this because maintenance is only paid for dollar for dollar.  Replacement is a capital expense for which the utility earns a return.
   
3. Our grid is not failing.  It is constantly planned and updated to serve strict reliability standards.
4. Climate change is not causing our grid to fail, it's the lack of maintenance and desire to build new transmission because it's more profitable (see 2 above).
5. Our forests are a tinderbox because new environmental regulations over the years have prevented effective forest management to prevent wildfire.  Also, right-of-way maintenance is often skipped (see 2 above).  This is what creates the tinderbox.
6. He glosses over microgrids and distributed generation "because he doesn't have time."  Actually, it seems more like it didn't fit his narrative.
7. His presumption that wind and solar is only in the middle of the country is wrong.  Renewable energy is everywhere.  What must be considered is the strength of local renewables vs. the strength of remote renewables, and then add in the cost and environmental destruction caused by new transmission to move the remote renewables.  He leaves that part out of his equation.  We don't "need" a massive new grid for renewables.  Renewables are a want, not a need.  The lights are on.  Generation source is a choice, not a need.
   
8. Not all people who live near renewable generators love them.  In fact, most people unlucky enough to live and work in these industrial energy facilities hate them.  "Fwoom, fwoom, fwoom."  The constant noise, shadow flicker, and health effects make many of these folks leave their homes.  Look it up, John, you pretentious ass.
   
9. You can bury new transmission lines.  That fact seems to have completely escaped him.  Maybe he doesn't know?  See SOO Green Renewable Rail, John.  It's the future.
   
10. Decorative transmission towers are old.  Like really old.  That was a stupid idea that never really took off.  Miss Beautility failed.  See here.  Why are you even talking about this?
    
11. "Fewer than one quarter of solar and wind projects are actually built" is a fact based on artificially inflated interconnection queues.  Generation companies propose more projects than they intend to actually build and then enter them in regional interconnection queues hoping to find the sweet spot where connection costs are minimal.  They never intended to build them all.
    
12. Pat Hoffman is spinning.  It's all about how you define "benefit."  It's not that power is actually getting cheaper due to renewables and new transmission.  It's that the industry is inventing new "benefits" to increase the cost/benefit equation in their own favor.  A Fire Department is not making a profit on the fire station it builds, but generators and transmission companies are making an enormous, double-digit profit on the infrastructure they build.  That's where that discussion was going, but you couldn't actually shut up and listen yourself.
13. Building an enormous amount of renewable generators and transmission lines won't stop climate change.  We've gotten where we are today through a very gradual process.  Building a transmission line today won't stop your grandchildren from being showered with hot, burning magma.  Any climate change happens gradually and I'm actually not sure we *can* stop it at this point.  But, some folks are getting rich, very, very rich, by pretending that they can save us, after they scare us silly about lava showers.
    
14. John doesn't even mention eminent domain.  "We" need compromise and flexibility?  Where are you compromising, John?  I don't see it.  What you really mean is that landowners who don't want new transmission or "fwoom, fwoom, fwoom" in their back yard need to "compromise" and accept it.  Do you know how arrogant and dismissive that sounds?  Probably not.  Suggesting that we can "ease concerns" of landowners by compensating them fairly is another antique idea that has never worked.  Where have you been, John?  Obviously not paying attention to this issue.  Here's what landowners want -- not to have this crap causing a burden.  Existing lines could be re-built and repurposed and made more efficient.  New lines could be buried on existing rights-of-way.  Energy could be produced close to load.  Energy efficiency is a thing, almost as old as the rest of John's brilliant ideas.
15. The recently passed infrastructure bill won't help us.  It will only fill the pockets of huge energy conglomerates building a bunch of stuff we don't want or need.  Did John read the bill?  Obviously not.  The bill contains two important provisions regarding transmission.  The first will allow the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to usurp state authority to site and permit transmission when the project is sited in a DOE-designated transmission corridor.  There's more to it, but I think his attention span must be the size of a slug's so I'll leave it there.  The second allows Pat and the DOE to buy up to 50% of a merchant transmission line's capacity, in the event that nobody else wants to buy it.  Pat isn't going to use the transmission capacity, she's just going to pay for it using our tax dollars.  The idea is that these payments for nothing will allow merchant companies to build more transmission roads to nowhere that have no customers.  It's handing our hard-earned tax dollars to private companies for absolutely no product or service whatsoever.
    

Now let's get to the most offensive part of this whole video.  John attacks one grassroots transmission group and says they are maddening and "sound like d*cks".  He also criticizes the landowner's attire, as if that ad hominem attack could make his point?  He selectively edits the video he appropriated to make it appear that the landowner made a stupid point that serves John's narrative that these people are selfish d*cks.

The opposition group he attacked is the Stop Transource folks from the eastern part of the route.  The video he appropriated is this one:

John focuses on one particular landowner who was obviously involved in harvest.  He wasn't dressed in a fancy suit for the job.  He was working hard to harvest the food John puts in his sh*tty casseroles.  The crack about what he was wearing was arrogant and stupid.  Compare John's video story at 16:16 to the actual footage at 36:49 on the Heritage Unprotected video.  At 16:34, John edited out something that causes a jump in the video.  What was edited out was this:

I'm sorry they have to fire another generator up to get the current that they need and it's going to cost them a little extra money."

That part didn't fit John's narrative that landowners are selfish d*cks, so he edited it out.  That part actually proved that the selfish d*cks are the folks in the city who want cheap fossil-fueled power from Pennsylvania because it's cheaper than running their own "clean" generators.

These people do not deserve this smear job from the very pretentious John Oliver, yukking it up at someone else's expense while filling his pie hole with the food they work so hard to produce.

These people are actually RIGHT.  It seems that John didn't bother to compare the video to the present day state of the Transource transmission project.  Maryland regulators required Transource to cancel this part of the project and simply add new wires to existing transmission towers.  If he had bothered to watch the whole video, he might have noticed that this idea was mentioned by landowners.  Turns out they were right all along.  They did not have to compromise or be flexible.  Transource did.  Also, the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission denied the project because it would increase electric rates in Pennsylvania, instead of lowering them for Washington, D.C. and Baltimore.  Turns out that the transmission congestion that was the basis for this project had managed to evaporate on its own.  There was no economic, market efficiency, need for this project after all.  The landowners were right about that, too.

Seems like John should apologize to the folks he maligned.  But, guess what?  A show that exists to spew propaganda and malign folks for a few laughs doesn't actually have a place where the viewers can send their comments.  Information is a one-way street at Last Week With John Oliver.  HBO doesn't care what you think, or if you were offended.

Too bad, really.  John is quite funny, but this story has revealed that his topics are nothing more than created propaganda.  Nothing actually funny about that.

I hope a pigeon poops on his head.