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Invenergy and Special Interest Groups Mischaracterize Legislation to Prevent Passage

4/5/2022

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Another year, another attempt by privately-owned Chicago company Invenergy to completely mischaracterize Missouri legislation to prevent passage into law.  Who controls Missouri elected representatives?  Is it the citizens of Missouri?  Or is it the profits of a super-rich out-of-state utility conglomerate?

HB 2005 was approved by the Missouri House and passed to the Senate, where a committee hearing will be held today.  Right on cue, Invenergy, its special interest groups and biased media step right up to spin a web of lies about the legislation designed to prevent its passage.

What is HB 2005?  In the interest of truth, perhaps you should actually READ it to find out what it does and what it does not do.  You cannot rely on the media, who replaces actual quotes from the bill's language with alarmist rhetoric.

The actual bill does these things:
  1. Defines "public service" to mean providing at least 50% of its capacity to serve Missourians.
  2. Requires county commission approval of certificates to construct.
  3. Requires transmission to provide at least 50% of its load to Missourians in order to use eminent domain.
  4. Must compensate agricultural landowner at 150% of fair market value when using eminent domain.
  5. Requires condemning commission to include at least one person who has been farming in the same county for at least 10 years.
  6. If amount awarded in condemnation is greater than offer, court may award attorney's fees to property owner.
What does Invenergy and an alarmist media think this bill does?
  1. "Pull the plug" or place "roadblocks" on GBE.
  2. Hamper Invenergy from pursuing condemnation.
  3. Unconstitutionally and retroactively kill GBE.
  4. Legislation is "short-sighted."
  5. Gives unfair advantage to fossil fuels.
Of course, the actual language of the bill does none of that.  This is just generalized rhetoric trying to prevent any real reading or consideration of the legislation by Missouri senators.  Kill the messenger and you don't have to read the message!  What does the bill do?  What the bill does, and no more. 

And speaking of screechy rhetoric, let's look at some of the over-the-top claims and objections by Invenergy and its special interest supporters.
Invenergy spokesman Patrick Whitty slammed the House bill, calling it “an astonishing move in the wrong direction” at a time when global energy is in a security crisis.

“Among its many other impacts, the bill would unconstitutionally and retroactively kill Missouri’s largest energy infrastructure project, the Grain Belt Express, a project essential to American energy security that will connect millions of consumers to domestically produced, affordable, and reliable clean energy,” Whitty said. “The energy from the Grain Belt Express is the equivalent of 15 million barrels of oil annually, produced and delivered right here in the Midwest.”
My, my, what timely nonsense!  Now GBE is about the war in Ukraine and Russian oil?  If you ever thought that Invenergy's public relations spinners are just making crap up to fit the politics du jour, here's your proof.

And look... there's the predictable "unconstitutional" claim.  This is so completely dog eared and worn that it actually dates back to Clean Line Energy Partners.  Constitutionality can only be determined by a court.  Invenergy, its supporters, the media, and even the Missouri legislature are not a court.  Their claims of unconstitutionality are nothing more than one-sided opinion.  It is the legislature's job to make laws.  It is the court's job to interpret them.  No court has ever deemed this legislation unconstitutional, therefore it is constitutional until a court says it is not.  If legislators are so scared of "unconstitutionality" that they fail to make new laws, then what's to prevent every special interest lobbyist from claiming a law it doesn't like is unconstitutional?   See how that works?  Claims of unconstitutionality by special interests should be ignored by the legislature while it goes about doing the people's work.
The Missouri Supreme Court earlier ruled that Grain Belt be granted public utility status because the $2.3 billion project is in the public interest.
Here's another recycled claim that holds no water.  As explained already, the Court interprets the law.  Under the law currently in effect, the court said GBE was a public utility.  However, that law was not written to knowingly grant a private profit corporation eminent domain authority to use Missourian's private property for its own gain.  If the law changes, then the Court's opinion will change.  The Court interprets existing law.  It does not make law.  Making laws is the job of the legislature.  If the legislature defines public utility to exclude merchant transmission that does not serve Missourians and only takes their property for its own private profit, then the Court shall find that GBE is not a public utility.
The project also has garnered the support of Sen. Bill White, R-Joplin, who says it will invest millions of dollars in the state’s rural areas, boost the local energy supply and help ensure energy independence.

White said Monday he had not yet reviewed the latest House bill, which moved out of the House last week on a 102-41 vote. But, he said retroactively targeting the company after it has already started buying land would be unconstitutional.

Another blast from the past.  Senator White claims the bill is "unconstitutional" before even reading it.  As if a Court would operate the same way?  Perhaps Senator White should spend more time investigating all the new electric transmission projects proposed by MISO to cross his district before he pans legislation designed to limit eminent domain and give landowners a fair shake.  Senator White's constituents are not being served here, just an out-of-state corporation.  Who does Senator White work for?
Labor unions, environmental groups and the Missouri Association of Municipal Utilities oppose the changes.

Jake Hummel, a former state senator from St. Louis who now oversees the Missouri AFL-CIO, said the project will create jobs as it crosses the property of 570 landowners in eight northern counties.
“The quest for American-made energy, while creating 1,500 Missouri jobs, is an opportunity our state cannot afford to pass up,” Hummel said.

Michael Berg of the Sierra Club’s Missouri chapter said the legislation is short-sighted in a time when energy production is evolving.
“More legal barriers for wind energy transmission give an unfair advantage to the highly polluting fossil fuel industry,” Berg told members of the House Judiciary Committee.
In addition, Berg said more than a dozen communities have signed up to purchase power from the line, including Kirkwood, Columbia, Hannibal and Farmington.
“The power delivered along this line is expected to save dozens of rural Missouri communities more than $12 million annually,” Berg said.
As an added benefit, Invenergy says it will use the power lines to also offer broadband service that could bring improved internet to over one million rural Missourians, including 250,000 within 50 miles of the transmission line.

So, labor unions think GBE will provide 1,500 jobs?  That's ridiculous, computer generated garbage.  GBE will actually COST Missouri jobs in agriculture and in local power production.  "American made energy" is another fluffy political talking point.  ALL electricity used in Missouri is "made in America."  If GBE is not built, it will still be made in America, and actually closer to home, right in Missouri itself.   So much propaganda piled on here it insults the intelligence of the average reader.

As far as the Sierra Club goes... there is no such thing as "wind energy transmission."  Electrons are not color coded and electrons from all sources are mixed together on transmission lines.  There is nothing preventing GBE from carrying electricity from any source and in fact it must offer its project to any generator who will pay its price.

About those dozen communities?  There are 955 municipalities in Missouri.  A dozen is not 50%.  As well, the $12M savings is completely out of date and was based on municipal contracts that have since expired.  Since the municipalities have replaced the very expensive Prairie State contract that expired last year with something cheaper, there is no longer any legitimacy whatsoever to the $12M figure.  It may be less, it may be more.  In fact, GBE may actually be MORE EXPENSIVE than current contracts.  Of course, nobody knows because GBE and the municipalities refuse to do the math.  What are they hiding?

Broadband?  Does Missouri even need this?  And where is the guarantee that it must be provided as a condition of building the line?  Who will pay for the last mile of line?  Can Missouri even afford to finish this?  And what about newer sources for internet service, such as satellite internet?  Might that end up being cheaper?  Why pour money into antiquated technology like broadband and overhead transmission on lattice towers?  Invenergy isn't in the broadband business, but it is in the business of making empty promises to Missouri.

Buyer beware.
1 Comment

Censorship and Propaganda Will Fail

3/30/2022

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People will always oppose new infrastructure that disturbs their life and imposes burdens without benefits.  The push for renewable energy is running headlong into push back from the people.  How renewable energy proponents deal with this push back is key to actually achieving renewable energy goals.  Censorship and propaganda are not an effective weapon.  Instead, smart developers will put their energy into avoiding impacts altogether.  If there are little to no impacts on the people, the people simply won't care enough to form entrenched and formidable opposition groups that are increasingly successful in stopping projects with outsized impacts.  No opposition translates into successful projects.  Stop waving your red cape at the bull.

Like this NPR article about "misinformation."  NPR asserts
In between posts selling anti-wind yard signs and posts about public meetings opposing local wind projects, there were posts that spread false, misleading and questionable information about wind energy.
Says who?
NPR sent Facebook a sampling of the posts from anti-renewable community pages. Facebook spokesman Kevin McAlister said in an emailed statement, "We take action against content that our fact-checking partners rate false as part of our comprehensive strategy to keep viral, provably false claims from spreading on our apps. The examples shared with us don't appear to meet that threshold as they have only even been shared a handful of times over a period of several years."
Who are these Facebook fact-checkers and what makes them experts with so much knowledge that they wield the power to shut down free speech that they find unacceptable?  What ever happened to this concept?
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Freedom of speech was the first amendment made to our Constitution:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Except Facebook isn't the government.  It's a social media experiment that has become victim of its own success.  Social media is for spreading the ideas and opinions of individuals to a wider audience assembled by the wonders of technology.  It was never intended to be an encyclopedia of facts.  But then the easy dissemination of ideas and opinions by real people started to get political.  Dumb people with too much time on their hands began to debate, okay argue, on Facebook about politics... as if reading blather on an internet platform ever changed someone's opinion, or vote.  Political beings needed to win their ridiculous political arguments, so they began to tilt the playing field to get a little extra help.  They believed ad hominems to be helpful; an attack on the person with the idea, instead of the idea itself.  But even that didn't quite work, so they upped the ante by simply removing these people's right to free speech by labeling their ideas "misinformation."  And then they devolved into simply canceling these people by removing them from internet society altogether.  Facebook, for its part, is a willing participant in this game.   And it's all political.  When did we start allowing political opinion to run our lives and ruin our social relationships?  It think it happened right around the time 24/7 cable news shows invaded our homes.  And its creeping invasion has slowly spread into today's abridging of free speech through "misinformation" claims that attempt to control your very thoughts.  Simply telling someone that you don't like their idea or opinion is no longer sufficient.  Instead they seek to burn those kind of unacceptable thoughts out of your brain through punishment and social isolation.

Thinkpol are no longer scary fiction.  They're here, and they infiltrate every segment of our society.  But no matter how hard they try, they will never erase independent thought.

There's more "misinformation" spread by renewable energy and transmission proponents than by its opposition.  But control comes from claiming Thinkpol status and making biased determinations of what is true or false.  It's not about facts though, it's about opinion. It's about erasing those thoughts that don't agree with the government's determination that you must sacrifice your home and your property so that other people can benefit without sacrificing their own homes and property.  It's sanctimonious elitism at its finest.

But the people will continue to resist.  An epic battle is brewing.  Who will win is not as important as who will lose.  We all lose when land use battles waste enormous amounts of money, time and energy.  But what if we never have this battle at all?  What if all the effort currently being poured into censorship and propaganda was instead directed at developing new energy solutions that didn't require any sacrifice?  Smaller, localized energy sources where the impacts are visited on the beneficiaries have been rejected in favor of massive production and massive impacts.  Why?  Because certain elite are going to make massive profits owning and operating them.  This includes new electric transmission, where there's lots of money to be made by creating a "need" that wouldn't exist if energy was produced where it is used.

Censorship and propaganda is eroding our basic freedoms, but it can never truly control our thoughts or our right to peaceably assemble and  petition our government for a redress of grievances.  There are better options than continuing our messy slide down the very slippery slope to totalitarianism. 

Think about it... while you still can.

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Putting Congress in CHARGE of Energy Regulation

3/25/2022

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Honestly, these guys just don't know how to play fair.  Several special interest groups have written a new law that ensures they will get their way in an ongoing FERC rulemaking.  Congress writes law.  Agencies write regulations that become the nuts and bolts of how the law Congress makes is carried out. 

Last year, FERC opened a rulemaking to make new regulations governing interstate transmission planning, cost allocation and generator interconnection.  FERC claimed its existing regulations had become unjust and unreasonable and no longer comported with the law Congress had made.  That's justification enough to change the regulations.

FERC sought comments on its new transmission rulemaking.  Lots of concerned companies, groups, and government officials responded, including a group of consumer organizations with a history of defending themselves against unneeded, unwanted transmission projects.  (See initial comments here, and reply comments here.)  FERC has the issue under consideration and has said it hopes to release a proposed rule by the end of this year.

However, last week Senator Sheldon Whitehouse introduced legislation he called the CHARGE Act.  (Connecting Hard-to-reach Areas with Renewably Generated Energy - Maybe they're only hard to reach because they are energy parasites who refuse to create any energy in their own back yards?).  The CHARGE Act is "endorsed by Public Citizen, Earthjustice, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), New Consensus, Grid Strategies, and Digital Climate Action."  And it sounds incredibly familiar.  In fact, it's just a slimmed down version of these groups comments on FERC's transmission planning rulemaking docket.  Instead of allowing FERC to finish its rulemaking docket, these special interest groups have attempted to short-circuit and second guess FERC's process by having Congress enshrine the rule they want into law.  FERC might as well tear up all the stuff that hundreds of parties spent time and money creating... the spoiled babies are attempting an end run around FERC in order to get their own way in a FERC proceeding by going through Congress instead.

If this is the way things are going to proceed from now on, FERC might as well just stop doing anything except rubber stamping the political wish list of the party in power.  That's pretty much what it has been doing since at least 2017, anyhow. 

Maybe Congress needs to be reminded that when it created the DOE, it retained an impartial regulator (FERC) to be independent from DOE because the DOE was expected to be too political to regulate impartially and effectively?

At any rate, take a look at the CHARGE act and see if you can figure out who's missing from this FERC technical conference guest list:

(A) LEADERSHIP.—A technical conference convened under paragraph (1) may be led by the members of the Commission.
(B) PARTICIPATION.—The Commission may invite to participate in a technical conference convened under paragraph (1)
rep
resentatives of residential ratepayers, transmission providers,
environmental justice and eq
uity groups, Tribal communities,
Independent
System Operators,
Regional Transmission Or
ganizations, consumer protection groups,
renew
able energy advocates,
State utility commission
and energy offices, and such other entities as the Commission determines appropriate.
This is a conference to determine transmission planning... what shall we build and where shall we build it?  Who's missing?  Landowners and affected communities.  They are the biggest stakeholders of all because they will be forced against their will to host new transmission planned by all these NIMBYs at the technical conference.  Of course they don't want to invite the people who are going to end up holding the hot potato of unwanted energy infrastructure to their conference.  It's a club of the chosen who can decide to conscript your home, your business, your economic prosperity, and your future, without giving you a seat at the table.

Here's another... who is missing from this transmission advisory committee?
(b) REPRESENTATION.—The committee shall be composed of not more than 30 members, including--
(1) at least 2 representatives of end-use customers;
(2) at least 1 representative of transmission providers;
(3) at least 2 representatives of environmental justice and equity groups;
(4) at least 1 representative of Tribal communities;
(5) at least 1 representative of Independent System Operators;
(6) at least 1 representative of Regional Transmission Organizations;
(7) at least 1 representative of consumer protection groups;
(8) at least 2 representatives of renewable energy advocates;
(9) at least 1 representative of State commissions;
(10) at least 1 representative of public power entities;
(11) at least 1 representative of marketers; and
(12) at least 1 representative of generators.
Who's missing?  Landowners and affected communities, again.  The very people who would have to live with the new transmission.

It's not like they think landowners are represented by any of these groups.  It's clear in another part of the bill that landowners and affected communities are something that must be communicated with. 
(c) OFFICE OF PUBLIC PARTICIPATION.—The Commission shall consult the Office of Public Participation during the rulemaking process under subsection (a), including with respect to--(1) guidance on public participation requirements; (2) communications with the public concerning transmission planning that may impact local communities and land owners, including Tribal, indigenous, and environmental justice communities; and (3) minimum data transparency and access requirements.
The landowners and affected communities don't get invited to any committees or conferences though.  And it's not like they are excluding the entire public, just landowners and affected communities.  Tribal and environmental justice communities are both recognized as "the public" AND ALSO included in the committees and conferences  (go ahead, compare to the first two quotes I included).   This is obviously on purpose in order to exclude these very important stakeholders like they don't matter.

And then they wonder why transmission opposition forms and ends up cancelling or delaying their project?

I miss democracy.
1 Comment

Energy Independence Means Producing Your Own Energy

3/24/2022

2 Comments

 
How do you know when Grain Belt Express has jumped the shark?  When the arguments for it turn into a politics du jour soup that make absolutely no sense.

Case in point... this op ed in the extremely biased Missouri Times (still operating in a darkened bar?).

The author drones on about energy security, energy independence and energy affordability, but I'm not sure he even understands the terms.

Energy independence means producing your own energy instead of relying on someone else to produce it and import it for your use.  Grain Belt Express is not an example of energy independence.  It's an effort to make Missouri reliant on imported energy from western Kansas and the Oklahoma panhandle.  If Missouri replaces its local energy generators with energy imported from hundreds of miles away that depends on just one overhead transmission line across severe weather prone territory, how is that independent?  It is the epitome of dependence on far away generators that cannot produce energy when called that is reliant on exposed and fragile wires.

Energy security?  Ditto.  The most secure energy system is one where power is produced where it is used.  Relying on an 800 mile transmission line is the epitome of insecurity.  Energy security also means that power is there when you need it, 24/7, not reliant on the vagaries of weather.

And then there's energy affordability.  The Missouri Times uses some really out of date figures to assert that Missouri municipalities will save $12.8M per year if GBE is built.  Those figures are more than 5 years out of date and relied on some numbers that no longer exist.  GBE would only produce a "savings" if it replaced some existing municipal energy contracts.  One of those was the outrageously expensive Prairie State contract that the municipalities signed in haste and repented at leisure until the contract expired last year.  Did Prairie State actually get replaced with GBE?  Nope... it couldn't.  GBE still hasn't been fully permitted or built.  Therefore the municipalities had to find another option for replacing that contract.  No word about who, where, or how much, but I hope it wasn't as expensive as Prairie State.  And, if it was not, then the $12.8M savings number collapses.  When is MJMEUC going to do an up-to-date savings calculation using current costs?  For all we know, using GBE to import energy from hundreds of miles away may be MORE EXPENSIVE than MJMEUC's current contract.  Just the fact that the supposed "savings" have not been updated in more than 5 years tells you all you need to know about how affordable GBE will be.  If it's such a great bargain, show me!

Missouri landowners cannot afford to have their productive farmland burdened with new rights of way taken using eminent domain.  Missouri landowners cannot afford to have permanent impediments constructed in the middle of their businesses.  Missouri landowners cannot afford to make a sacrifice so that an out-of-state energy company can make billions trying to sell power thousands of miles away to distribution utilities who don't want to purchase it.

And why should they when it's now possible to bury high voltage direct current transmission in existing rail and transportation rights of way and not have to cut new rights of way or take property using eminent domain?

There's a better solution on the horizon.  It's time to retire the old technology of fly-over electric transmission.  And it's high time to update Missouri eminent domain laws so that they are only used for a public use, not private profit.
2 Comments

Is Grain Belt Express Making Empty Promises in Illinois?

3/8/2022

2 Comments

 
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Grain Belt Express is running a "virtual" open house meeting for affected landowners in conjunction with its second round of physical open house meetings across Illinois.  Some of GBE's web content might surprise you, especially if you're a affected landowner in another state who got promised all sorts of things that never materialized. 

Like monopoles.  For years, Clean Line Energy's Grain Belt Express promised landowners that it would use monopole structures with a smaller footprint.  The Missouri PSC even approved a project that used these structures, falsely claiming that only 9 acres of land across the state would be disturbed (structure footprint only).  And then Invenergy bought GBE when Clean Line went out of business and began to systematically dismantle all the pie-in-the-sky promises made to landowners because there were cheaper options.

One of the first to go were the monopoles.  Invenergy says on its website that all structures will be 40 x 40 (1600 sq. ft.) 4-legged steel lattice towers.  Monopoles are no longer mentioned.
What do the structures look like? The structures will be lattice steel designs. The structure base will have four legs approximately 40 feet by 40 feet wide. The structures will be between 130 to 160 feet tall.

What is the footprint of the structures?
The footprint of each structure is less than 1% of the easement area. Each of the structure’s four legs will have a cylindrical cement foundation that is around 4 to 6 feet wide and about 15 feet deep. These dimensions will vary somewhat based on localized soil conditions.
But GBE's "virtual" open house  says its structures could be monopoles, lattice mast, or 4-legged lattice structures.  The footprint of the monopole and lattice mast structures is estimated to be 6-8 sq. ft.  However, the footprint of the 4-legged lattice structure is estimated to be 27 x 46 ft. (1242 sq. ft.).

How do the structures in Illinois vary so significantly from the structures in Missouri and Kansas?  The answer is that they don't.  Kansas and Missouri were also promised monopoles during the permitting process, which were then switched out for the larger lattice structures after permission to build was granted.  Why is that?  Because lattice structures are cheaper to build and less of them are required per mile.  It saves GBE money by increasing the burden on affected landowners.

What else sounds like an empty promise on GBE's virtual open house? 

GBE repeats that its project will be build AT NO COST TO TAXPAYERS.  What?  Electric transmission is not generally charged to taxpayers.  Electric transmission is a strictly "beneficiary pays" enterprise.  The users of the system who receive the benefit of the infrastructure are the ones who pay for it.  This concept follows through on GBE's unique merchant transmission negotiated rate scheme.  Under this rate mechanism, GBE would negotiate rates charged with voluntary customers who sign up to use the line.  Only those customers who voluntarily sign a contract to use GBE would pay for the line.  So, if nobody in Illinois is going to have to pay for it, that also means nobody in Illinois is going to get any benefit from its use.  It's a flyover project causing burden in Illinois for the benefit of electric customers in other states and regions.

GBE says it will improve reliability... but reliability for whom?  Not Illinois, who will not use the project.  This is nothing more than political opportunism... a scheme laid bare by other claims of "energy independence."  Fact:  Electric grid reliability is planned and ordered by regional transmission organizations.  GBE is not a regional transmission organization project and therefore is not needed for reliability reasons.  Why are you being sold "reliability" you don't need?

You're also being sold "new opportunities" that don't exist. 
...providing new opportunities to local communities along the route
Fact:  GBE is a high-voltage direct current line.  Our electric grid is alternating current.  Direct current must be converted into alternating current before it can be connected to the electric grid.  Converter stations are hugely expensive and may only be located at the beginning of the line and the end of the line.  Therefore, there is no way any locality along the line could use the electricity passing through.  So, where's the "opportunity?"  The "opportunity" to be paid a pittance for the use of your land for the benefit of others and in a way that makes the transmission project owner very, very, very, very, very, very rich.  Not such a great opportunity after all.

GBE pretends that is is being responsive to landowner concerns and is designing its route accordingly.  It says it learned the following things at the Round 1 meetings last month: 
  • Proximity to homes
  • Farm operation impacts, including irrigation and spraying
  • Construction impacts including on crop yields and drain tile
  • Hunting/recreation
  • Planned/platted development

But yet it hasn't adjusted its routes at all for Round 2.  And I'm pretty sure GBE "heard" suggestions that it should route its project buried along a major interstate highway instead of across private property during the Round 1 meetings.  But obviously, GBE didn't listen.  GBE only heard what it wanted to hear, not what was actually said.  Why are there no underground and/or public right of way routing options?  When will these options be developed?  Will they be developed?

GBE prattles on about jobs, jobs, jobs.  It's the same computer program-generated hogwash every transmission project uses to pretend its an "opportunity" for rural areas.  Fact:  Most jobs are specialized and workers who perform them are hired from just a handful of specialized companies who bring workers onsite from other states.  There are few jobs for local workers.  In addition, GBE will contract for materials and supplies from the cheapest source.  They don't care if that supplier is local or not.  But, like all transmission projects, GBE pretends it is going to use local workers and supplies "as much as possible."  It's an open-ended, empty promise.

GBE is paying 110% of the market value of easements.  That's 110% of GBE's calculated market value of your land, which may not agree with an independent appraiser's value.  There's no review of this value, GBE simply wants you to trust their valuation of your property.  That's like the fox guarding the hen house!  When (IF!) you sign an easement, GBE will pay you 20% of the amount you are entitled to.  Wait... what?  GBE strikes a deal to pay you a certain sum and then only pays you 20% of that?  Have you ever tried to buy real estate by only paying for 20% of it?  Promises to pay the balance later are open-ended and maybe empty.  When will you be paid?  Is that written in the contract with a firm date?  How long should you have to wait to get the full purchase price when GBE gets full access to your land once you sign?  Can your contract be written so that you receive full payment on signing?

And take note that there is absolutely no mention whatsoever of Clean Line Energy's structure payments.
Structure Payments In addition to easement payments, you will be compensated for any structures on your property. You can elect an upfront, lump sum payment of $18,000 per structure, or receive annual payments starting at $1,500 per-structure in Year 1 and escalating at 2% each year as long as the structures are on your property.

Looks like Illinois landowners are not getting these payments that were promised to landowners in Missouri and Kansas.  After all, why try to butter up the landowners when the crooked and compromised Illinois legislature has passed an unconstitutional law written for Invenergy's benefit that grants it eminent domain in each county?  GBE doesn't have to fairly compensate landowners, so why bother?

But is this whole project nothing but one giant empty promise?  A merchant transmission project must have contracted customers to pay for its construction before it builds anything.  Try asking GBE who its customers are... GBE has no customers other than a small group of Missouri municipalities who signed up for a measley 5% of the project's capacity at a bargain price.  That won't pay to construct the project.  Ask GBE if they will be posting a bond before beginning construction on a project with no paying customers?

So much complete and utter baloney.  P.T. Barnum would be proud.  Is he going to be at your Round 2 Open House meetings?  Or just his spirit?
2 Comments

There's Nothing "Peaceful" About Eminent Domain Threats

2/28/2022

4 Comments

 
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Invenergy sure is laying it on thick in Illinois these days.  Do they think the people of Illinois don't have internet access where they can read about how the project is playing out in other states where it has been permitted by state utility commissions?

How about this article from Kansas?  Invenergy is shopping around a "road use agreement" that it wants County Commissions to sign.  Invenergy wrote this agreement for its own benefit.  It's most likely not in the best interests of the counties, judging from this statement:
Brown said the roads would not take the wear and tear that building a wind farm would entail, as they aren’t traveling in with heavy loads such as big wind turbines. He said the transmission stations will be brought in pieces and put together on site.
The components of a steel lattice transmission tower and miles of metal cable don't weigh as much as a fiberglass wind turbine blade?  Or the sections of a steel tower to hold the blade?  This is ludicrous.  A transmission line's components weigh as much as a wind turbine's components.  Both are assembled on site, piece by piece.  Who does Brown think he's kidding?  Also, a transmission line will require huge AC/DC converter stations on both ends.  The converter station uses enormous transformers that come fully assembled.  Some of them are so huge that they cannot be moved by truck and must be brought in by rail and then trucked the last little bit to the site.  That would probably produce a whole bunch of "wear and tear" on local road systems.

And because Brown is blowing smoke at the county commissions that there will be no road impacts, can we assume that Invenergy's agreement does not compensate for "wear and tear?"

And what about "wear and tear" on local landowners?
Brown also assured commissioners that the easement talks were peaceful and so far only a handful of requests have gone to court.
“We don’t want to use imminent domain,” he said. “We don’t want to use attorneys, we would rather have a conversation with landowners.”

Peaceful?  Is that like a "mostly peaceful" protest where shop owners are shot and the city is in flames?  Or is it more like the "peaceful" way some folks are said to pass on? 

Taking private property through eminent domain, or the mere threat of it, is never "peaceful."  It's stressful, maddening, and invasive.  There's nothing peaceful about being forced to do something against your will.  It's not a "conversation."  It's a war, albeit one that takes place in legal offices and courtrooms.

If Invenergy doesn't want to use eminent domain, then why apply to use it?  Facts on the ground say that Invenergy does, after all, want to use eminent domain.
... only a handful of requests have gone to court.
How many is a handful?  Does that include the fistful that have been filed in Missouri as well?  Invenergy claims that it has acquired 65% of the easements it needs in Kansas and Missouri.  Does that mean that Invenergy will take the remaining 35% using eminent domain?  Hardly a "handful."

Invenergy doesn't even mention its recent use of eminent domain in Kansas and Missouri during its PR blitz across Illinois.
“Eminent Domain is something of a last resort used here,” Pnazek said. “In Kansas and Missouri to date, Invenergy has signed up about 65% of the affected parcels on a voluntary basis, and those are the approach that we’d be taking here as well as we progress the project through Illinois.”
He conveniently forgot to mention the eminent domain filings his company has made in Kansas and Missouri.

And then there's this from Kansas...
Brown also told commissioners that there need not be concern over pushy land agents, stating that Invenergy hires reputable and credible agents but told the commissioners to contact him with any concerns.
As if Invenergy would even want to do anything about "pushy" land agents that hound landowners to sign agreements instead of going to court.  The fox is watching the hen house here!  Funny he didn't mention the Grain Belt Express Code of Conduct for Landowners.  See all those items that begin with "do not"?  That's because land agents DID these things.  It's how they do their job.  Coercion is a job without a moral compass.  When landowners have complained about "violations" of this "code" to GBE, they have been completely dismissed.  Nobody here in the hen house but us foxes!

Hope you've got your snow shovels poised at the ready, Illinois!  (Or maybe another kind of shovel would be more appropriate).
4 Comments

Under the Microscope

2/21/2022

1 Comment

 
Did you know that there is a small group of scientific researchers that study transmission opposition?  We're like some exotic creature that nobody understands.  They speak in hushed tones, like they're narrating a golf tournament, so as not to disturb the creatures in their native habitat.

*Warning!  Strong Language*
When I run across one of their studies, it's usually interesting reading because a scientist without a political agenda will generally hit upon some truth.  Of course, that truth is usually wrapped up in complicated hypotheses and mind numbing statistics, but little truths often escape.

Like in this study.

One of the little truths I gleaned from this one is that "compensation packages" are most often associated with environmental group involvement in transmission siting and permitting.
Environmentalists are associated with compensation packages; marginalized groups are associated with undergrounding and combined remediation; and environmentalists, the federal government, and the breadth of coalition actors is associated with the combined remediation outcome.
A compensation package means that someone got paid off to accept the impacts of the project.  It is never the affected landowner, who bears the greatest impact.
However, opponents often have differentiated goals, and a just outcome for one member of a coalition may be unjust for another.
Environmentalists use landowners as battering rams, and ultimately sacrificial lambs, to achieve their own goals.  An environmental group opposing a project because of its fuel source will pretend it cares about property rights in order to win the support of landowners, but when push comes to shove, the environmental group will often end its opposition if the project owner agrees to fund environmental goals.  Ditto on the local governments, to a degree.  Local governments usually get involved at the request of their constituents.  But a project developer knows that it may end the government's opposition by offering additional payments for the local government.  Neither situation actually provides compensation to affected landowners, but pays others to toss the landowners under the bus in exchange for their own gain.

The take away:  Don't allow your landowner group to be conscripted to fight the battles of others.  Autonomy always.  Just because a well-funded national environmental organization weighs in on your side doesn't mean they have the same interest as you.  In fact, they may be using you.

Local governments don't usually get involved with the idea of using you for their own gain, but sometimes the payola is just too much for these local officials to resist.  When that happens, they are usually tossed out of office at the next election, but that doesn't stop the impacts from happening.

The second truth is that "public meetings" hosted by transmission developers are nothing more than a staged dog & pony show.  These meetings are not meant as a two-way exchange of ideas.  Don't waste your time trying to convince the transmission developer to change its plans.
Developers often determine the dimensions of the project, such as route options, during the upstream phase of the decision-making process (Cotton and Devine-Wright 2013). Public consultation can occur later, and community meetings can have the goals of limiting engagement to final route selection and of selling the project.
That's right, the decision of what to build where has already been made.  You'd be more productive to look at these meetings as an opportunity to gather information for your battle and to make connections with other disgruntled landowners.  I always look at them as first and foremost recruitment venues, and secondarily as a place to document conflicting and misleading information.

It's all good though because transmission developers, governments, regulators and environmental groups dismiss these studies because they often don't agree with their own misunderstandings about grassroots opposition.  They may think they have us all figured out, but they never even get close.  And that's how we win our battles.
1 Comment

That's YOUR Problem, Grain Belt Express!

2/17/2022

4 Comments

 
Picture
We've established that burying Grain Belt Express on existing public rights of way is technologically feasible.  But it costs more to build it that way.  The cost of the project is of no concern to affected landowners being asked to accept the financial burden the project imposes on them.

Here's why:

Grain Belt Express is a merchant transmission project, not a transmission project ordered by a regional transmission planning organization because it is needed for reliability of the system, or economic reasons.  Or even to support state public policy laws.

A public utility must maintain its system to provide reliable and economic service to all customers within its service territory.  A public utility must provide service to all customers within its territory at equitable rates.  A public utility cannot pick and choose which customers it wants to serve, and it cannot charge different rates to similarly situated customers.  A public utility may have different rates for different classes of customers, for example residential users may pay different rates than commercial or industrial customers.  But a public utility cannot charge a different amount to two residential customers, or two commercial customers.  A public utility has an obligation to serve all customers equitably.

A merchant transmission project is not a public utility because it has no obligation to serve any customer, and it may charge different rates to similarly situated customers.  It does not operate in the interest of the public, it operates in its own private interest.  A merchant can pick and choose which customers it wants to serve, often based on profit.  For example, a merchant transmission company may choose to serve only the portion of its potential customers who volunteer to pay the most money for the service.  And even then, it can charge different rates for each customer.  It's like a water line that chooses to supply water for only select customers who pay the most for water, or wear a certain colored coat, or vote for a certain candidate.  The rest of the people go without water. 

Because a merchant is only providing service to chosen customers, it is not providing a public service.  It is providing a private service negotiated between just two parties.  If your neighbor wanted to build another driveway into his property that was routed through your backyard, could he condemn your backyard and use it for his own private business?  Of course not!  Instead, your neighbor may negotiate with you on a free market basis to sell him an easement to cross your property, but he can't just take it.  This is why merchant transmission companies should never be granted the solemn power of eminent domain.  Merchant transmission is not providing a PUBLIC service.

Now let's noodle over the issue of merchant transmission rates. 

Your public utility is regulated and may only charge its customers its cost of providing the service, plus a small profit set by regulators.  It can't just charge whatever it wants, its rates are thoroughly examined and set by regulators in order to protect the public interest.  Your public utility cannot choose to serve only customers who offer to pay the most, or wear a certain coat, etc.  It must serve the entire public.

A merchant transmission company is not regulated and does not use cost of service rates.  Instead, it may be granted negotiated rates by federal regulators.  A negotiated rate is just that... a rate for service that is negotiated voluntarily between two sophisticated parties.  Federal regulators rely on the market value of the service to keep prices at reasonable rates.  If a merchant insists on pricing its service higher than voluntary customers are willing to pay, it won't have any customers.  Customers will only pay for the service if it is reasonably priced for their needs.

A merchant transmission project is a speculative business venture that is proposed solely for profit.  The merchant supposes that if it builds transmission between Point A and Point B that customers will elect to take service.  Those customers will negotiate rates with the merchant on a free market basis.  The rates they volunteer to pay do not exceed the market value of the service.  The market value of the service is the price the service would fetch in a competitive market.  It reflects the value of the service to voluntary customers.  The market value is completely unaffected by the cost to construct the project.  The price for service reflects what voluntary customers are willing to pay, not the merchant's cost to construct the project.

If Grain Belt Express claims that undergrounding, or negotiating easements in a free market, makes its project too expensive to appeal to its voluntary customers, the proper response is:  "Too bad for you, Grain Belt Express."  It means that the merchant's financial proposal to provide service at market-based rates is uneconomic.  When a merchant transmission project is uneconomic, it doesn't attract voluntary customers, and the project fails.

There is no reason landowners should be held captive to the financial proposals of private parties.  Landowners should not be forced to accept financial or emotional  harm so that a privately held company that does not provide a public service can make money.  It is not incumbent upon Midwest landowners to make a sacrifice so that voluntary customers in another region can pay cheaper rates for a private service. 

Don't visit the financial impacts of GBE on the people of Illinois, Missouri and Kansas so that GBE can make a huge profit selling "cheap" service to the people of other states.  GBE is trying to undercut renewables in those other states on price, and in so doing causing financial harm to Midwestern landowners.  The people in other states don't have a "right" to cheaper electricity that trumps your right to own and use your land to make a living.  Grain Belt Express is an uneconomic project trying to avoid failure by heaping undue costs on others who will receive no benefit.
4 Comments

Grain Belt Express CAN Be Buried!

2/15/2022

3 Comments

 
Invenergy was completely unprepared for Illinois landowners who asked why the project was not proposed to be buried on existing rights of way at recent "Open House" dog and pony shows.

Instead, Invenergy personnel just made up some pretty laughable excuses. 

Burial along existing roadways is possible because Invenergy is doing just that on a proposed HVDC transmission line in New York.  Clean Path New York is a joint venture between Invenergy, Energy RE and the New York Power Authority.  The project
bundles new transmission with new clean energy — about 3,400 megawatts of new wind and solar capacity to be built upstate by EnergyRe and Invenergy, the latter a major clean energy developer. 

Of the project’s $11 billion price tag, about $3.5 billion would go toward building a 174-mile high-voltage direct-current transmission line capable of carrying 1,300 MW of power from upstate to New York City, with completion set for 2027. The remainder of the budget would fund the new wind and solar. 

The New York Power Authority will provide the right of way for much of the project underneath its existing 345-kilovolt overhead transmission line running from Utica to Orange County, with the remaining stretch buried along roadways and underneath the Hudson River.
So a HVDC transmission line CAN be buried along existing roadways, under water, and underneath existing AC transmission lines.... when Invenergy wants to do it.

But look at that price tag!  174 miles of line costs $3.5B!  That's more than the cost of the entire 800-mile long Grain Belt Express project!  But even at that cost, Invenergy can still manage to make a profit on the New York line.  Sort of makes you think about how much profit could be made on GBE if it builds a much cheaper project on overhead lattice towers.  Go ahead, get out your calculators...

What Invenergy spends on line, it more than makes up for by building wind and solar farms in upstate New York and selling the electricity to New York City.  The federal government pays for most of the wind farm through generous production tax credits.  Invenergy gets paid by taxpayers for every electron it generates, and subsequently sells to electric customers.  Taxpayers pay Invenergy to generate electricity, and then they pay to purchase the electricity they paid to generate.  What a racket!  But don't you think that Invenergy might also want to build the non-existent wind farms in Kansas that it proposes will be served by GBE?

Perhaps most galling of all Invenergy's lies is its assertion that its New York project is "an example to the nation" for how to build transmission without causing sacrifice from landowners.
... its use of underground high-voltage direct-current (HVDC) line along existing rights of way to minimize the risk of opposition from landowners and communities along the path of the project.... ​“We think that using existing rights of way is less impactful, both ecologically and in terms of communities and view corridors,” he said. ​“We think that this project will serve as an example for the rest of the nation on how to solve these complex issues.”
Not much of an example when Invenergy turns right around and tries to ram through an overhead transmission project using eminent domain to acquire new rights of way across private property that is hotly opposed by landowners in four states. 

What a bunch of HYPOCRITES.

What's good for the goose is always good for the gander, and landowners in the Midwest aren't getting the same respect that Invenergy has shown to landowners in New York.  What makes landowners in New York more important than landowners in Kansas, Missouri, and Illinois?
There’s certainly a need for strategies to enable massive grid expansion that can accommodate large amounts of new wind and solar power. Proposed transmission projects can face a decade or more of challenges related to siting, permitting and cost allocation. These hurdles have fatally tripped up several high-profile projects over the past decade. 

Burying HVDC cables along existing railroads and highways can dramatically simplify the process, bypassing the need to get permits from multiple states, counties and private landholders for overhead transmission towers. Technology advances over the past decade have allowed these types of projects to compete with overhead lines on cost.
See that link above for "several high-profile projects"?  Go ahead and click it.  It's a list of 7 transmission projects that have been stymied by landowner opposition.  Grain Belt Express is number 4 on the list.
Also, the "existing railroads and highways" link goes to a story about SOO Green Renewable Rail.  SOO Green is very much alive, despite what you may have been told by Invenergy.  SOO Green is building an underground HVDC project on existing rights of way without any subsidies from the State of Illinois, or any other state.  That's because the project's economics pencil out, even with increased costs to bury the project.  Buried HVDC can be done in Illinois.

If you read the linked article, you will find out that SOO Green's biggest hurdle right now isn't landowners, but getting through the interconnection process at PJM, the east coast power grid.  Guess what?  GBE also plans to interconnect with PJM.  Get in line, fellas!
The cost is manageable.  The technology exists.  There's an existing interstate that runs east-west across all three states.  Burying Grain Belt Express on existing highway right of way is absolutely possible!

Why then is Invenergy trying to build an outdated and invasive project across prime farmland?  Why isn't there any respect for the landowners in Kansas, Missouri and Illinois? 

Why is Invenergy so greedy about potential profit?  The cheaper GBE is to construct, the larger Invenergy's profit.

Isn't it about time that landowners and elected officials in Illinois get straight answers from Invenergy, instead of self-serving lies?
3 Comments

Alternatives urged for Grain Belt Express overhead lines

1/29/2022

0 Comments

 
Incredible Letter to the Editor of the Effingham Daily News.

David Buckman, President, Block Grain Belt Express Illinois asks why Grain Belt Express cannot be buried on existing rights of way like a similar project proposed in Illinois.  And why can't GBE be buried like Invenergy's CleanPATH NY transmission project?

WHY Invenergy? 

WHY?

One alternative is to build/bury the transmission lines along the right of way of public highways. Route 36 which crosses Illinois from east to west is one such possibility. The State would then receive any payments that the company intended to pay related to this project which would help reduce the State’s outstanding debt.

Another alternative is to bury the transmission lines along the proposed routes. In fact, Invenergy the ultimate parent of Grain Belt is already engaged in such a project in the State of New York – Clean Path NY.

There is another proposed HVDC project in Northern Illinois, Soo Green RR, which outlines their plans to bury their transmission lines next to railroad lines. You may view the four minute video at https://www.soogreenrr.com/project-overview/

0 Comments
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    About the Author

    Keryn Newman blogs here at StopPATH WV about energy issues, transmission policy, misguided regulation, our greedy energy companies and their corporate spin.
    In 2008, AEP & Allegheny Energy's PATH joint venture used their transmission line routing etch-a-sketch to draw a 765kV line across the street from her house. Oooops! And the rest is history.

    About
    StopPATH Blog

    StopPATH Blog began as a forum for information and opinion about the PATH transmission project.  The PATH project was abandoned in 2012, however, this blog was not.

    StopPATH Blog continues to bring you energy policy news and opinion from a consumer's point of view.  If it's sometimes snarky and oftentimes irreverent, just remember that the truth isn't pretty.  People come here because they want the truth, instead of the usual dreadful lies this industry continues to tell itself.  If you keep reading, I'll keep writing.


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