Catalyzing Conflict

Lots of people concerned about the U.S. Department of Energy's preliminary National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors (NIETC) attended DOE's webinar on Thursday afternoon.  The DOE gals were just so enthusiastic and CHEERY about the whole thing, like little hens proudly showing off their chicks.  Don't they realize what these enormous "corridors" represent to their audience?  They represent appropriation and forced taking of private property.  Nobody was buying the forced cheer.  One person asked me if it was some sort of public relations stunt.  I received a lot of comments afterwards, none of them good.  Is DOE really that detached from the reality of their actions?  The whole shebang was nothing but a clueless charade.

One of them said NIETCs were "likely to catalyze" new transmission, but the only thing being catalyzed on Thursday afternoon was confusion and anger.  It was only DOE's hubris that made them think they could manipulate all the victims into advocacy, or at least acceptance.

​Here's DOE's idea of the "impact" of designation. 

Let's concentrate on the graphics they used.  Profits (for transmission developers) are solved by making deals.  The words weren't necessary.  Clueless.  Absolutely no thought about how their presentation may be perceived by the public.

These corridors are supposed to facilitate "national energy policy" which, at this time, is supposed to be carbon reduction.  But then there was this:

One of these projects is NOT for clean energy... at all.  In fact, it will increase carbon emissions by sourcing new energy for Northern Virginia's data centers from coal-fired generators in West Virginia.  How did that get on the list?  And where has DOE proven anything on this chart?  Truth is that building this much transmission is only going to cause consumer costs to go up.  Adding new costs does not result in lower prices.  It's all made up.

And how about those not-to-scale, featureless maps?

Those lines are supposed to be two miles wide, but they're much, much bigger as shown on the maps.  We need accurate maps or written descriptions of the corridors so we can figure out where exactly they are supposed to be.  And where did all those new segments come from, exactly?  This isn't one transmission project, it's many.  How much coal power does DOE think data centers need?  Who asked DOE to plan these additional routes that PJM rejected last year?

DOE says it received information from "the public" or maybe it was "interested parties" in Phase 1 of its process that created these corridors, but we're not allowed to see any of it.  When your government is conspiring behind closed doors with corporations who stand to profit from these plans, what's the point of public consultation anyhow?

Here's a little reality for DOE.

DOE is not a grid planner.  It doesn't have the knowledge, expertise, or authority.  None of DOE's corridor plans have to be used for new transmission.  It's just a corporate wish list.

DOE is not a transmission regulator.  It has no authority to permit anything in these made up corridors.  There is no guarantee that state utility commissions, or even FERC, will agree that these corridors are transmission that needs to be built.

DOE is not a transmission router.  It has no knowledge, expertise or authority to site transmission projects.  There's a lot more than drawing lines on a map that goes into routing transmission lines.  It is likely that DOE made a bunch of huge and unrecoverable mistakes within these corridors that prevent transmission from ever being sited within.

The veneer of DOE's charade was pretty thin for me on Thursday.  I wonder if they would be so cheery if they knew that there's little chance of their scheme surviving regulatory and judicial review?  But pretending to be serious academics who have all the answers sure was fun, wasn't it?