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Grain Belt Express Clean Line is a Threat to our Independence and Freedom

7/4/2014

Tammy Hammond is the founder of Rosewood Services, a facility that fosters an environment of independence, inclusion and productivity for individuals with developmental disabilities through education, work, recreation, and housing designed for their unique abilities. On this Independence Day she shares her thoughts about the nature of sacrifice and the devastation the proposed Grain Belt Express Clean Line will have on her life, her programs, and most importantly, the independence of the clients she serves in Kansas.

Grain Belt Express is a massive high voltage electric transmission line proposed to transport energy generated in the southwestern Kansas region to expensive east coast cities. Purposed to provide attractive returns to foreign investors, Grain Belt Express is designed to increase America’s dependence on centralized electric generation and old fashioned overhead transmission that disturbs our rural communities and way of life. Only through development of their own sources of renewable electricity will eastern states realize their own true independence, while keeping their energy dollars at home in their own communities.

Read Tammy's declaration of independence from Grain Belt Express, entitled "This Land is Our Land." Here's a preview to get you started:

My name is Tammy Hammond, Kansas land owner for 30 years. As I sit here on
Independence Day 2014 my thoughts are consumed with the efforts of Grain Belt Express Clean Line's plan to run High Voltage Transmission Lines across my properties.
I'm very much opposed to the Grain Belt
Express 140 feet tall transmission towers,
carrying 750,000 volts of electricity, running
across our land. I could list pages of serious
health risks to my children and grandchildren, or provide statistics to the devastating de-valuation of property these High Voltage Power Lines will cause.
Probably, you have already heard those
arguments, so I would like to explain
something which I believe to be much more
profound...
I've been struggling for days with how to tell this story; how do I express with words why a
landowner will fight till their last breath, and their last dollar, to keep what is rightfully theirs?
How do you explain this so people understand the deep-rooted patronage of owning your
piece of the American dream...your Freedom in the heartland...the place you proudly call
home... What I discovered is something much deeper, much larger than Grain Belt Express....
I believe it is "American Spirit", how fitting to tell the story on July 4th, our Country's
Independence Day.

Click here to continue reading

Tammy's inspirational treatise ends with this message to the Sam Brownback political machine that stole the independence and freedom of hard working Kansas voters by greasing the approval of Grain Belt Express at his Kansas Corporation Commission:

So Today... this Message is for you, Grain Belt Express, Elected Officials or whoever is listening...
Do not underestimate our deep rooted sense of Freedom....
This is our land, my children's land, and so on for generations to come...
Earned with "our" blood, sweat and tears, it is
"we" who have the right to call this land home....
Make no mistake. We planted our "Flag of Freedom" and we will fight to
keep it...
you cannot have it...
you have not earned it...
we are here to stay...

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A Streetcar Named De$ire

6/30/2014

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Check out the collision of ideas in a recent edition of the Energy Law Journal. Oh, it's really not as boring as it sounds, but the authors sure do know how to belabor a point. You'd think they were being paid by the word...

First, take a look at DOES DISRUPTIVE COMPETITION MEAN A DEATH SPIRAL FOR ELECTRIC UTILITIES? by Elisabeth Graffy and Steven Kihm. It's one more take on the idea that how we produce and use energy is moving on, and utilities that don't get ahead of the curve by offering products that consumers want are going to end up like streetcars, land line phones, and beanie babies.

Traditional utility response to the proliferation of widely distributed rooftop solar has thus far been limited to attempts to lock in a future revenue stream to pay for what may become a stranded investment in centralized generation and transmission. Early efforts in this regard have been soundly rebuffed, not only by the owners of these small-scale generators, but regulators as well.

Strenuous efforts to mitigate rather than innovate seem likely to increase vulnerabilities by generating public and customer backlash, motivating market competitors, and instigating potential legal challenges.

The article compares and contrasts the responses of two companies facing innovation/technology challenges in their respective industries. It examines how the cable TV industry remade itself when facing competition from satellite TV companies -- it began offering new products that increased its value to consumers by bundling TV with phone and internet service.

In contrast, much is made of the fate of Market Street Railway, a regulated streetcar company whose response to competition from buses and automobiles was to increase rates to cover its costs while relying on regulation to maintain its monopoly.

This story has significant implications for electric utilities facing increasing and especially disruptive competition that may shift their risk position from the zone in which regulation is effective to one in which it is not. That Market Street responded to disruptive competition by simply requesting rate increases from its regulator reveals denial that their economic woes were due to fundamentally changed circumstances that required new organizational strategy, not just regulatory intervention. Market Street, while fully understanding the existence of threats to its viability, showed no real signs of innovation or adaptation in this regard, but rather continued a reliance on conventional cost-accounting-based utility ratemaking practices to the bitter end.

And that's exactly what utilities seem hell bent on doing in the other ELJ article, REGULATORY FEDERALISM AND DEVELOPMENT OF ELECTRIC TRANSMISSION: A BREWING STORM?

This article, by James Hoecker, advisor to WIRES, the "Voice of the Electric Transmission Industry!!!" wanders on for 29 pages of transmission building advocacy. Build, build, build! It doesn't seem to matter whether there will be any consumers left to pay for it all, as long as the federal government takes control of electric transmission permitting and siting today by "collaborating" with states in order to usurp their authority. It even goes so far as to push the CSG's interstate siting compact bad idea.

So, what will it be? Transmission or innovation?

Building more traditional transmission using eminent domain to acquire new rights of way will NOT work. The public has had enough! Transmission opposition has become increasingly sophisticated and its methods are becoming more effective at cancelling and delaying most new proposals. This pitched battle has both sides spinning its wheels, but delay is the opposition's friend. And the more the industry nibbles away at state authority, the closer it pushes state regulators toward permit denial.

Does this mean that we can stop building transmission altogether? No, but we can stop building transmission stupidly. Smart transmission uses existing rights of way to rebuild existing lines to increase their capacity. In some instances, the public actually welcomes a responsibly managed rebuild, especially when presented as an alternative to new transmission. In other instances, the public welcomes smartly designed new transmission projects, like Atlantic Grid's New Jersey Energy Link. This project is buried for its entire length, avoiding the expense and time delays of opposition to traditional overhead transmission projects. But perhaps its best selling feature is that it is designed to be useful long into the future -- moving conventionally generated power to markets that need it today, but also there to move offshore wind to load as it is developed. If only they get rid of that insulting "NIMBY" word...

But old habits die hard for the big energy conglomerates, who wish to continue operating their streetcar named De$ire. Instead of creating an exciting and profitable new market for themselves, Ohio's Tweedledum and Tweedledee have hung their hopes (and plopped their "transmission spend") on investing in more transmission.

You can lead a company to knowledge, but that doesn't necessarily make it any smarter.

Oooooh! Shiny object!

In the end, the electric utility as an institutional form has not exhausted its relevance. Claims that utilities are in a certain death spiral seem premature. However, those predictions seem disturbingly grounded in tacit assumptions that utilities are too hidebound by their past to be able to adapt in a timely or agile way to rapidly changing conditions. If so, utilities will find themselves to be brittle rather than resilient when confronting disruptive competition in a sector that is central to social, economic, security, and environmental necessities and, therefore, cannot remain static. All signs point to the reality that utilities must change. The open question is whether they will change by embracing and, indeed, leading value creation or be changed by others in the market who embrace it first and more firmly.

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7th Circuit Remands PJM's Old Cost Allocation Methodology to FERC -- Deja Vu!

6/27/2014

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In a predictable move, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit kicked the Illinois Commerce Commission v. FERC can back to Washington today.

This case has been dragging on for nearly 5 years. When it first started, ratepayers in PJM's Illinois territory were looking at sharing a huge chunk of the cost of PJM's multi-billion dollar Project Mountaineer collection of unneeded transmission projects. Although the bill has shrunk considerably with the cancellation of PATH and MAPP, the argument has only grown.

It centers on PJM's 2006 adoption of the "postage stamp" cost allocation methodology. This method assigned costs of new transmission 500kV or greater to all ratepayers in the region based on their share of regional electricity sales. The more power an area used, the greater its share. PJM did this to spread out (socialize) the cost of its Project Mountaineer venture over more customers so it could get that transmission built before the hoi polloi noticed, "before it became common dinner table talk."

However, it's important to realize that PJM no longer uses the 100% "postage stamp" cost allocation method and hasn't since last year. Today's 7th Circuit decision will have no effect on any proposed or future transmission projects in PJM, or any other RTO. Today's decision will only affect those projects that were built (or not!) before last year's new allocation method went into effect. PJM's new, FERC-approved cost allocation methodology relies on a 50-50 split of two different methods for transmission lines of at least double-circuited 345kV or greater. The first 50% is allocated according to the old postage stamp method, and the remaining 50% is allocated either to the cost causers or the beneficiaries, depending on the reason for the project. Costs for transmission projects based on "public policy" clean energy state laws will be allocated to the states that require them under PJM's "State Agreement Approach." If a state doesn't agree to shoulder the cost burden for a project designed to meet its renewable portfolio standard, then it will not be built.

Today's decision echoed the first remand from the 7th Circuit, that found that FERC had not done enough to show that utilities in "western PJM" received benefit from Project Mountaineer that was commensurate with their cost responsibility under the old "postage stamp" allocation method.

FERC dealt with the first remand by rolling its eyes and making up more crap about how "western PJM" benefited from Project Mountaineer. It pulled an even bigger diva act on rehearing. But FERC just can't out-diva Judge Posner of the 7th Circuit.

Posner hates coal, and transmission lines that carry it. But, he loves postage stamp rates for transmission lines that are supposed to be "for wind."

This Sybil act must also be confusing to FERC, but hopefully they can get it right this time... because third time's a charm, right?

Go ahead, read today's decision. It's quite chatty and reads like some guy's geeky blog post about electricity and cost-benefit analyses, until you get to the 9-page dissent by Judge Cudahy, who seems to be writing from the other side of the political spectrum. It's fairly entertaining. However, I suspect FERC is not as amused as you are.

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Clean Line Pelts Ernest Moniz With Form Letters

6/18/2014

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Clean Line Energy Partners is getting increasingly desperate as its "business plan" to build 3,000 miles of high voltage DC power lines across the country begins to come apart at the seams.

Clean Line's Plains & Eastern project stretching from Oklahoma to Tennessee thought it would help itself to Section 1222 of the 2005 Energy Policy Act and arranged a cozy RFP from the DOE that coincided with its intent to build its project.

Except Clean Line's project does not fit the plain language in the statute.

In an attempt to remedy its failings, Clean Line facilitated a secret flurry of form letters to U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz from wind energy companies that stand to profit from the project. The form letters urge Secretary Moniz to approve Clean Line's Section 1222 application.

But the comment period, and the letters, were conducted IN SECRET. The citizens and landowners affected by Clean Line's use of Section 1222 were not afforded an opportunity to comment. In fact, the citizens have been continually told by DOE personnel that their only opportunity to weigh in on this matter is through the DOE's Environmental Impact Statement.

This is being done despite the fact that DOE is accepting letters in support of Clean Line that have nothing to do with the EIS.

Don’t let Clean Line’s lies be the only voice Secretary Moniz hears before he makes this important decision! It is imperative that you tell Secretary Moniz not to approve Clean Line’s application NOW. He wants to hear from YOU!

Send your letters to:

The Honorable Ernest Moniz, Secretary
U.S. Department of Energy
1000 Independence Ave., SW
Washington, DC 20585

Or Call him: 202-586-5000

Send him a fax: 202-586-4403

Send him an email: [email protected]

Comment on his Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ErnestJMoniz

Send him a Tweet: https://twitter.com/ErnestMoniz

Let’s bombard Secretary Moniz with REAL comments from REAL people and drown out the comments Clean Line’s toadies submitted! Your voice will make a difference!

If you need help composing your comments, email me!

2 Comments

TVA Launches Distributed Generation Initiative

6/13/2014

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Memorandum, schmemorandum. The only thing Clean Line's "Memorandum of Understanding" with the TVA is good for anymore is wall papering the loo.

Clean Line thought they'd hit a sweet spot and found a quasi-governmental customer for their expensive 3500MW payload that was going to help them convince the federal government to go ahead with the worst abuse of federal eminent domain land takings in modern day history.

But, apparently the TVA is not the congregation of chumps Clean Line thought they were. The TVA is now making inroads toward a distributed generation future.

TVA has formed a new "stakeholder" group (get your stakes, folks, and hang on tightly!) to determine the value of distributed generation. The initiative aims to develop a methodology to gauge the value DG provides to the electric grid and the benefit the distribution grid provides to the DG owner.

Let's hope these "stakeholders" can drop the rhetoric and get the job done.

Updates and opportunities to comment will be posted on TVA's DG-IV page here.

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Beware the Hurtado! and Other "Clean" Fairy Tales

6/8/2014

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Our friends at Clean Line have been as busy as a nasty nest of yellow jackets this past week, while I was tied up with other things. So, on this beautiful Sunday, let's hunker down around the campfire and catch up on some scary stories...

My multilingual, Arkansan friend, Doc, alerted me to an interesting discovery this week. Clean Line's project manager for its Plains & Eastern "Clean" Line, slated to plow through Arkansas like Godzilla on his way to Tokyo, is a Mr. Mario Hurtado. In the Spanish language, the word "hurtado" means "to steal." So, Clean Line is sending out some guy named "to steal" to... ummm... steal land from Arkansans. Brilliant! Perhaps Clean Line watches too many old movies and expected its opponents in Arkansas to behave like movie characters...

...and not like multilingual PhD's.

So... Arkansas... Beware the Hurtado!

My friend Doc says he looks like this:

Meanwhile, in other "Clean" news from Arkansas...
"Clean" Line has submitted a second application for negotiated rate authority from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

I guess their first one wasn't good enough, since they didn't even bother to mention it in their new filing. So, inquiring minds want to know... is "Clean" Line just stupid, or are they trying to pull something on FERC?

Negotiated rate authority is no big thing, though. It simply bangs out a plan for the company to negotiate rates with potential customers in a fair and non-discriminatory fashion. It doesn't get them any customers. It is not an "approval" of the project. FERC's only authority over this project is ensuring its rate structure is fair. FERC has no authority over the siting and permitting of this project. Big deal, Mr. To Steal.

And, news from Missouri...

"Clean" Line has been quoting industry-influenced WHO studies as "proof" that their transmission projects will have no health effects on nearby residents. However, a well-respected, local physician has been compiling and reviewing medical research on the health risks of the proposed "Clean" Line. The Moberly Monitor did an indepth report about what Dr. Smith has found. Shocking and dangerous! Dr. Smith's findings are a MUST READ for every person in proximity to one of these "Clean" Lines.

Other news outlets have also picked up on Dr. Smith's EMF research, and the truth is spreading like wildfire! SeeABC News, the News Democrat, and about 18 other major news outlets.

"Clean" Line needs to finish watching the movie that they've been using as the basis for their arrogant expectations of the intelligence and cunning of their local opposition. They must not have watched far enough to see this scene yet:

5 Comments

CFRA Does Not Represent the People

6/3/2014

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The Center for Rural Affairs has pissed off a whole new bunch of people, this time in Wisconsin, by sending out a "red alert" telling them this is their "last chance" to comment on the Badger-Coulee transmission project. Of course it's not their "last chance"!

Carol Overland, who has been fighting the legal fight against unneeded transmission for many years, tells CFRA what the people REALLY think:

I'm disturbed to see that you're regarding Lu Nelsen and Center for Rural Affairs as a primary source. Center for Rural Affairs is not an intervenor in this project. Center for Rural Affairs is a paid transmission advocate, through the RE-AMP program, it is paid to to promote transmission.

A CfRA Director also sits on the RE-AMP Steering Committee. It's unfortunate that these facts are not included in your article -- this interest should be disclosed, because they are neither objective nor representing public interests or farmer interests. If their paid advocacy was not disclosed to you, that's an even more significant problem.

Read more about transmission toadie CFRA here, and check out the organization's source of funding. It is receiving grants from entities I like to call "the environmental 1%" -- super rich, super clueless, city folk whose environmental tyranny is not a compliment to rural interests.

CFRA does not represent the people, although they are being paid well to pretend that they do. Tell them they don't represent you!

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PJM Market Levelizes Prices

5/25/2014

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Well, they've finally done it. The cost of electric capacity is now the same in Washington, D.C. as it is in the poor, southern West Virginia coal fields. This is what PJM's markets have been shooting for -- to make everyone pay the same price for energy, no matter which community shoulders the biggest burden to produce it.

PJM looks at it as sufficient generating capacity being available where it's needed, whether through physical location or with the help of new high voltage transmission.

PJM shared the results of its annual base residual auction for 2017/18 on Friday. The annual auction secures needed capacity three years in the future and determines the price winning generators will receive just for existing. Bids are stacked by price until the capacity target is reached, and the highest bid in the stack is the common price all winning generators will be paid.

New this year is a common RTO-wide price, except for the PSEG zone in New Jersey, which is still "constrained" and must run higher priced generators to meet capacity. For many years, other east coast locations also separated at a higher price because they were "constrained" and "needed" to import "cheaper" generation from places like West Virginia.

The RTO-wide price for 2017/18 is $120 MW-day, and the PSEG price is $215 MW-day. The PSEG price really didn't change from the prior year, but the RTO-wide price doubled. So now most of the RTO can pay more.

I'm not going to hyperventilate over incumbent generator manipulation of the market with new regulation in order to raise prices. I think that part has been covered elsewhere, ad nauseam. Big deal.

Most of this report is about as exciting as watching paint dry. I did find it interesting that PJM applied a capacity factor of only 13% to land-based wind resources bid into the auction. That means wind is counted on to actually generate when called at a rate of 13% of its maximum available capacity. How many wind farms would be needed to produce a reliable, base load resource when they can only be counted on at 13% of their name plate capacity? Big wind is not the answer.

Solar fared much better, with a 38% capacity factor. *hint, hint*

Blah, blah, blah.

Oh, but wait.... The DC Appeals Court dropped a turd in PJM's punchbowl on Friday, vacating a FERC Order regulating demand response. Demand response was one of the capacity resources that cleared in PJM's auction.

*PJM is evaluating a May 23 appeals court ruling vacating FERC Order 745 in its entirety. This ruling could affect how demand response resources are able to participate in PJM’s markets in the future. Since the court has not issued a mandate requiring FERC to take action pending appeal of its ruling, there are no immediate impacts on the current base residual auction results.

Well, ut-oh. Just one more day in the regulatory cesspool.

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Barclays Says Don't Bet on Electric Utilities

5/25/2014

1 Comment

Barclays downgraded the entire electric sector this week. The bank's reasoning? Traditional electric utilities are on their way out.

As I've been pointing out for the last two years, and joined by electric sycophant Edison Electric Institute last year, consumers are remaking the electric industry by becoming producers.

Investment houses are getting nervous, and making reference to other industries that went the way of the dinosaur in the face of a technical revolution that they chose to ignore.

Electric utilities… are seen by many investors as a sturdy and defensive subset of the investment grade universe. Over the next few years, however, we believe that a confluence of declining cost trends in distributed solar photovoltaic (PV) power generation and residential-scale power storage is likely to disrupt the status quo. Based on our analysis, the cost of solar + storage for residential consumers of electricity is already competitive with the price of utility grid power in Hawaii. Of the other major markets, California could follow in 2017, New York and Arizona in 2018, and many other states soon after.

We believe that solar + storage could reconfigure the organization and regulation of the electric power business over the coming decade.

We believe that sector spreads should be wider to compensate for the potential risk of regulator missteps and/or a permanent change in the utility business model.

Whether because of biases or analytical complexity, the market (and its constituent prognosticators) has tended to be late in pricing technology-driven shifts, particularly in industries that have had stable operating models (such as telcos and airlines).

It's high time for traditional electric utilities to get over their fear of the future and embrace the brave new world by making themselves relevant in this new paradigm. Regulatory campaigns to secure a revenue stream for stranded investment will only be successful if they are based on reason and fairness, and if the utility makes an honest transition. Building more centralized infrastructure in the face of today's reality shouldn't be supported.

Likewise, distributed energy producers also need to base their regulatory arguments on reason and fairness. If your generator is going to be connected to the grid, you need to pay for it. Pretending that your net metering arrangement that may add up over time to net zero means that you shouldn't pay any of a utility's costs to maintain its infrastructure is unreasonable.

The real challenge here is putting the brakes on continued investment in centralized generation and transmission, and successful negotiation of a fair transition plan. Entrenchment and pitched battles over cost responsibility is just a waste of time. Let's get with it people... the future is here!

1 Comment

An Open Letter to The Center For Rural Affairs

5/24/2014

3 Comments

by Sharon Bean, a small Kansas family farmer

To the Center For Rural Affairs--

I’m afraid I cannot get a few puzzle pieces to fit properly, even after several attempts. The pieces that perplex me are marked “Our Mission”, “Our Values”, and the other is marked “SPDC”. Perhaps you can help me out here. I am assuming you took ample time and tremendous research efforts to decide that SPDC is such a great thing for all of us. So I’m sure you wouldn’t mind taking your Mission Statement and your Values and explaining to me exactly how those puzzle pieces can ever fit right with your glorious SPDC scheme.

My understanding of a good mission statement is that it gives assurance to members, clients, and the public that you are credible and always will be. I also thought it was a tool, perhaps a compass, that would keep any potential new idea or plan to stay in line with your original vision. In other words, simply put, keeping all the dots connected properly. I thought a mission statement was put into place to help you achieve your goals and not lose sight of why you started your organization in the first place. While you may believe your mission statement may be your “touchstone”, it looks to me like it is becoming a tombstone for your values. I have been under the impression that values don’t change regardless of whether or not the world is changing. It is my understanding that they remain steadfast even when undue pressures may be felt from external sources or when temptations arise to grab at the bright, brilliant, blinding light from a bunch of dangling carets. Isn’t it true that while purpose may change, values should NOT change?

Might I ask, when was the last time your organization bothered to take the time to read (not skim) CFRA’s “Our Mission” and “Our Values”? As I mentioned earlier the puzzle pieces just don’t fit and the SPDC piece is, without doubt, the culprit.

To be frank, it appears to me that you, Center for Rural Affairs (an organization of conscience) has lost your vision, passion and direction and our rural communities, our society, our environment, and our future generations will pay the ultimate price. That’s quite a legacy you and your grand plan, SPDC, will be leaving behind.

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<<Previous

Forward>>

Grain Belt Express Clean Line is a Threat to our Independence and Freedom

A Streetcar Named De$ire

7th Circuit Remands PJM's Old Cost Allocation Methodology to FERC -- Deja Vu!

Clean Line Pelts Ernest Moniz With Form Letters

TVA Launches Distributed Generation Initiative

Beware the Hurtado! and Other "Clean" Fairy Tales

CFRA Does Not Represent the People

PJM Market Levelizes Prices

Barclays Says Don't Bet on Electric Utilities

An Open Letter to The Center For Rural Affairs

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