What's it going to be, America? Are you going to be part of the solution or part of the problem?
In a New York Times feature article this week, the Gatrels of Cowgill, Missouri, are pitted against a stable of merchant transmission speculators and their lobbyists and beneficiaries.
Jennifer Gatrel says,
In a New York Times feature article this week, the Gatrels of Cowgill, Missouri, are pitted against a stable of merchant transmission speculators and their lobbyists and beneficiaries.
Jennifer Gatrel says,
“We believe that the East Coast has access to abundant offshore wind and that any time you talk about green or clean, you should also be talking about local,” she said. “Unnecessary long-haul transmission lines are not our country’s future.”
Gatrel grows the bulk of her family's food on their own cattle ranch. And, as the NYT reporter put it, "Why should they have to live beneath the high-voltage lines when there is plenty of wind in the East?" Why can't the coastal cities develop their own available renewables? The federal government has known about the potential of offshore wind for more than a decade. This map clearly shows that usable renewable resources exist along the coast to serve our population centers. Why, then, does our government and the transmission proponents quoted in the NYT article skip right over offshore wind resources like they don't exist? I think it's pretty plain after reading the article: All the transmission proponents stand to make money building a gigantic network of overhead transmission across the country. Their own personal profits come before science or common sense.
Get with it, America, you have the ability to make your own local energy! It's just not true that energy comes from "somewhere else." A "somewhere else" off in Appalachia, where they happily mine and burn coal to produce electricity for distant cities. Or now that coal is gauche, a "somewhere else" off in the Great Plains, where farmers sit on the porch and count their cash while happily watching windmills turn to produce electricity for distant cities. The citizens of "somewhere else" aren't profiting from their sacrifice! Instead, all the cash ends up in the pockets of the transmission companies, their "advisors" like Hoecker, and their pet landowner representatives like Wayne Wilcox. Go ahead, google Wilcox, he's got more miles on him than a vintage John Deere tractor. He's Clean Line's pet landowner, trotted out again and again when they need someone to represent "landowners" who approve of their plan. One landowner isn't a majority. It's one lonely landowner vs. the thousands of landowners who oppose the Grain Belt Express.
And that's what's happened in Missouri. The Missouri Public Service Commission weighed the claimed benefits of the Grain Belt Express project against the burden on affected citizens, and Grain Belt Express came up short. The Commission found that the project wasn't necessary or convenient for the public service. It wasn't needed for Missouri utilities to meet their state-mandated renewable portfolio goals, and the project is not economically feasible. The PSC determined the project proponents did not prove it would lower wholesale electric prices, lower retail electric rates, or reduce the need to generate electricity from fossil-fueled power plants. The PSC also noted Grain Belt's failure to submit its project into the regional transmission planning process. "The Project is not needed for grid reliability because GBE did not submit the Project to the regional planning process, has not identified any existing deficiency or inadequacy in the grid that the project addresses, and has not shown that the project is the best or least-cost way to achieve more reliability." The Missouri Public Service Commission stands out as visionary -- the only state to say no to a badly-planned project and demand better solutions for its citizens.
Like all the projects featured on the NYT-created map in the article, Grain Belt Express is a merchant transmission project. Merchant projects are conceived and proposed outside the established regional transmission planning process. Projects ordered needed through the regional planning process are financed by electric ratepayers in the region who receive benefits from them. In contrast, merchant projects are self-funded and rely on market-based need to support them financially. If it is economical to use a merchant project, then it shall develop a customer base to support it.
That's all fine and good, until a merchant that fails to develop a customer base looks to the government to force a customer base to develop through conditional permits and the use of eminent domain to take land cheaply for the project. This is where the problems begin. In a truly market-based project scenario, a developer's cost to acquire necessary right-of-way is at the mercy of the market. The cost of right-of-way should be at whatever value is necessary to acquire land voluntarily. The use of eminent domain, however, forces landowners to involuntarily part with their land at a utility-determined "market value" that is not the product of free market negotiation. While Clean Line Energy Partners representative Michael Skelly says that his company "would compensate landowners for their sacrifice," he's not talking about a "share in the wealth" proposition where landowners become equal partners in the project and share in the profits. He's talking about a one-time "market value" payment for right-of-way that is determined by his company to be adequate. Take it or have your property condemned, with an ultimate value to be determined by the court long after the sacrifice begins. In this scenario, the landowner is forced to live with the obstruction in perpetuity in exchange for a small one-time payment for the land in the right-of-way only. Permanent obstructions lower the value of the entire parcel and constrain future land use possibilities. A one-time payment for land in the easement only is not adequate compensation.
Where is the problem with this kind of project? Opposition. Opposition from landowners like the Gatrels results in costly delays in the permitting process, and can result in permit denials.
But it doesn't have to be this way. Two of the featured merchant projects can be compared to show that avoiding opposition saves time and money and gets merchant projects built. The overhead Northern Pass transmission project proposed in New Hampshire has been stalled for years due to landowner opposition. However, the buried New England Clean Power Link has sailed through approvals with no opposition. What's the difference? Land use. The Clean Power link is buried underwater and in public rights-of-way. It's not proposed as a permanent obstruction on anyone's private property, therefore it has not generated opposition from affected landowners. Buried transmission lines are approximately twice as costly to construct as overhead lines, but when the cost and delays of opposition are factored in, is an overhead project really cheaper to construct, especially if opposition causes outright denial?
Most merchant transmission projects, like Clean Line, are wrongly using the traditional business model for needed transmission lines ordered by regional planners and paid for by all ratepayers. It's like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. A merchant project, because it's not needed, must make itself marketable by avoiding opposition, not by using the government to force opposition to accept a less appealing project in order to allow maximum profit for the merchant. Clean Line's continued attempts to force a market for its projects has electrified (heh, pun intended) massive, sustained opposition across the Midwest.
This is how the projects featured in the NYT article are different than traditional projects, and why there is so much controversy about building them. This is what was left out of the article.
Now, circling back to Jennifer Gatrel's point about the East Coast's failure to develop the incredible renewable potential available in its own backyard, why is that? When offshore wind projects have been proposed in the east, opposition has developed fueled by rich landowners who don't want wind turbines junking up their sea views. Not much different than Midwesterners not wanting wind turbines or transmission towers junking up their own pastoral views, you think? Wrong. The electricity produced offshore would be used by the very landowners complaining about its appearance, while the electricity produced in the Midwest would be used by the eastern landowners who don't want to look at infrastructure in their own backyard. One is refusing to sacrifice for the benefit of others, while the other is refusing to sacrifice for its own benefit. Who's selfish now?
Renewable energy is right there near the population centers who want to use it. Get on with harvesting it, using it, and enjoying the economic benefits that come with a new industry.
We're at an energy crossroads in this country. We don't have to continue to use old, centralized, energy creation and transportation paradigms that relied on harvesting and converting fossil fuels where they were abundant. Renewable energy is everywhere. The movement for fresh, locally grown food can be extended to fresh, local energy. This is the only way our energy use can become truly sustainable.
Get with it, America, you have the ability to make your own local energy! It's just not true that energy comes from "somewhere else." A "somewhere else" off in Appalachia, where they happily mine and burn coal to produce electricity for distant cities. Or now that coal is gauche, a "somewhere else" off in the Great Plains, where farmers sit on the porch and count their cash while happily watching windmills turn to produce electricity for distant cities. The citizens of "somewhere else" aren't profiting from their sacrifice! Instead, all the cash ends up in the pockets of the transmission companies, their "advisors" like Hoecker, and their pet landowner representatives like Wayne Wilcox. Go ahead, google Wilcox, he's got more miles on him than a vintage John Deere tractor. He's Clean Line's pet landowner, trotted out again and again when they need someone to represent "landowners" who approve of their plan. One landowner isn't a majority. It's one lonely landowner vs. the thousands of landowners who oppose the Grain Belt Express.
And that's what's happened in Missouri. The Missouri Public Service Commission weighed the claimed benefits of the Grain Belt Express project against the burden on affected citizens, and Grain Belt Express came up short. The Commission found that the project wasn't necessary or convenient for the public service. It wasn't needed for Missouri utilities to meet their state-mandated renewable portfolio goals, and the project is not economically feasible. The PSC determined the project proponents did not prove it would lower wholesale electric prices, lower retail electric rates, or reduce the need to generate electricity from fossil-fueled power plants. The PSC also noted Grain Belt's failure to submit its project into the regional transmission planning process. "The Project is not needed for grid reliability because GBE did not submit the Project to the regional planning process, has not identified any existing deficiency or inadequacy in the grid that the project addresses, and has not shown that the project is the best or least-cost way to achieve more reliability." The Missouri Public Service Commission stands out as visionary -- the only state to say no to a badly-planned project and demand better solutions for its citizens.
Like all the projects featured on the NYT-created map in the article, Grain Belt Express is a merchant transmission project. Merchant projects are conceived and proposed outside the established regional transmission planning process. Projects ordered needed through the regional planning process are financed by electric ratepayers in the region who receive benefits from them. In contrast, merchant projects are self-funded and rely on market-based need to support them financially. If it is economical to use a merchant project, then it shall develop a customer base to support it.
That's all fine and good, until a merchant that fails to develop a customer base looks to the government to force a customer base to develop through conditional permits and the use of eminent domain to take land cheaply for the project. This is where the problems begin. In a truly market-based project scenario, a developer's cost to acquire necessary right-of-way is at the mercy of the market. The cost of right-of-way should be at whatever value is necessary to acquire land voluntarily. The use of eminent domain, however, forces landowners to involuntarily part with their land at a utility-determined "market value" that is not the product of free market negotiation. While Clean Line Energy Partners representative Michael Skelly says that his company "would compensate landowners for their sacrifice," he's not talking about a "share in the wealth" proposition where landowners become equal partners in the project and share in the profits. He's talking about a one-time "market value" payment for right-of-way that is determined by his company to be adequate. Take it or have your property condemned, with an ultimate value to be determined by the court long after the sacrifice begins. In this scenario, the landowner is forced to live with the obstruction in perpetuity in exchange for a small one-time payment for the land in the right-of-way only. Permanent obstructions lower the value of the entire parcel and constrain future land use possibilities. A one-time payment for land in the easement only is not adequate compensation.
Where is the problem with this kind of project? Opposition. Opposition from landowners like the Gatrels results in costly delays in the permitting process, and can result in permit denials.
But it doesn't have to be this way. Two of the featured merchant projects can be compared to show that avoiding opposition saves time and money and gets merchant projects built. The overhead Northern Pass transmission project proposed in New Hampshire has been stalled for years due to landowner opposition. However, the buried New England Clean Power Link has sailed through approvals with no opposition. What's the difference? Land use. The Clean Power link is buried underwater and in public rights-of-way. It's not proposed as a permanent obstruction on anyone's private property, therefore it has not generated opposition from affected landowners. Buried transmission lines are approximately twice as costly to construct as overhead lines, but when the cost and delays of opposition are factored in, is an overhead project really cheaper to construct, especially if opposition causes outright denial?
Most merchant transmission projects, like Clean Line, are wrongly using the traditional business model for needed transmission lines ordered by regional planners and paid for by all ratepayers. It's like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. A merchant project, because it's not needed, must make itself marketable by avoiding opposition, not by using the government to force opposition to accept a less appealing project in order to allow maximum profit for the merchant. Clean Line's continued attempts to force a market for its projects has electrified (heh, pun intended) massive, sustained opposition across the Midwest.
This is how the projects featured in the NYT article are different than traditional projects, and why there is so much controversy about building them. This is what was left out of the article.
Now, circling back to Jennifer Gatrel's point about the East Coast's failure to develop the incredible renewable potential available in its own backyard, why is that? When offshore wind projects have been proposed in the east, opposition has developed fueled by rich landowners who don't want wind turbines junking up their sea views. Not much different than Midwesterners not wanting wind turbines or transmission towers junking up their own pastoral views, you think? Wrong. The electricity produced offshore would be used by the very landowners complaining about its appearance, while the electricity produced in the Midwest would be used by the eastern landowners who don't want to look at infrastructure in their own backyard. One is refusing to sacrifice for the benefit of others, while the other is refusing to sacrifice for its own benefit. Who's selfish now?
Renewable energy is right there near the population centers who want to use it. Get on with harvesting it, using it, and enjoying the economic benefits that come with a new industry.
We're at an energy crossroads in this country. We don't have to continue to use old, centralized, energy creation and transportation paradigms that relied on harvesting and converting fossil fuels where they were abundant. Renewable energy is everywhere. The movement for fresh, locally grown food can be extended to fresh, local energy. This is the only way our energy use can become truly sustainable.
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