“Invenergy has decided to change course in Barry County,” said Meredith Jeffrey, manager of renewable development for Invenergy, in a statement to The Times.
That's it. Oh, there's also some speculation about interference with air traffic and wildlife, but when has Invenergy ever cancelled its money-making plans because they caused community impacts?
Now that Invenergy is going hammer and tongs on its Grain Belt Express transmission line to ship wind energy from "better places farther west with fewer people that are better suited", it has bagged its plan to build wind in Missouri. After all, why compete with itself and let Missourians partake of wind energy produced in their own state? Isn't it better for Missouri communities to pay Invenergy a bunch of money to create wind energy elsewhere and import it to Missouri? That idea has worked so well for goods manufactured in China, hasn't it? Things are so cheap! But a lot of local jobs dried up and the imports can't be depended upon.
Sorry, City of Monett, you're going to have to buy service on the Grain Belt Express if you want wind energy. You can't have locally produced power.
Now that Invenergy is going hammer and tongs on its Grain Belt Express transmission line to ship wind energy from "better places farther west with fewer people that are better suited", it has bagged its plan to build wind in Missouri. After all, why compete with itself and let Missourians partake of wind energy produced in their own state? Isn't it better for Missouri communities to pay Invenergy a bunch of money to create wind energy elsewhere and import it to Missouri? That idea has worked so well for goods manufactured in China, hasn't it? Things are so cheap! But a lot of local jobs dried up and the imports can't be depended upon.
Sorry, City of Monett, you're going to have to buy service on the Grain Belt Express if you want wind energy. You can't have locally produced power.
As an electric service provider, the City of Monett is interested in renewable energy and expanding our resource mix that already includes wind, gas and coal resources. The city may have an interest in procuring a local source of wind energy, but we have to balance that with concerns for the operation and future expansion of our airport and electric generator’s potential impact on our airport tenants and users.
Well, isn't that hypocritical... the city and county officials want wind energy, but they don't exactly want it in their own backyard.
“The thing about this area is we’ve got the wind, but the demographics and geography just are not conducive for wind towers,” Schad said. “We’ve got too many small concentrations of homes and two airports. It’s not so good when you look at the details.”
Well, guess what? None of the communities on the GBE route are conducive for transmission lines. They've got too many concentrations of homes and airports. But nobody seems to care about that when eminent domain has been granted. And speaking of eminent domain, here's a whopper....
As power producers and not as a utility, the company’s activities did not fall under oversight by the Missouri Public Service Commission.
When Invenergy is a "power producer" it's not a utility. But when it wants to build transmission to make its power production available at a different location, it is magically a utility with eminent domain authority.
I'm not fooled. A HVDC transmission line with no available connections except at an end point converter station acts more like a generator than a transmission line. It injects large amounts of power to the grid at a fixed location. It's not an open-access highway that will provide fixed-rate service for all customers who request it. It will only provide service for customers who offer to pay the most. That's not a public utility.
It remains to be seen if Invenergy will pack up its bindle and leave Missouri altogether when it finds out that Missourians want nothing to do with its GBE project either. Landowners have been resisting this company for more than a decade. They're not likely to cave in now.
I'm not fooled. A HVDC transmission line with no available connections except at an end point converter station acts more like a generator than a transmission line. It injects large amounts of power to the grid at a fixed location. It's not an open-access highway that will provide fixed-rate service for all customers who request it. It will only provide service for customers who offer to pay the most. That's not a public utility.
It remains to be seen if Invenergy will pack up its bindle and leave Missouri altogether when it finds out that Missourians want nothing to do with its GBE project either. Landowners have been resisting this company for more than a decade. They're not likely to cave in now.
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