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.
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.
DOE is buying something that it doesn't need and won't ever use, but will put a lot of money in the pockets of private investors who otherwise would have no buyers for their overpriced service. Can I just say "I told you so" in advance? This program is wasteful, illogical, and unfair.
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?
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?
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