Category: Newslinks

Powerful Farmers Harm Poor, Downtrodden Michael Polsky

4/8/2022

That's what this article in biased environmental rag Energy Wire wants you to believe.

They came to Missouri’s capital from small cities and towns such as Marshall and Lebanon, Odessa and Shelbina.

They’re not activists or lobbyists but city administrators and public works directors from deep red Missouri counties. They drove hours this week to push back against big agriculture and urge the majority Republican Legislature not to spike the largest energy infrastructure project in the state — the $2.5 billion Grain Belt Express transmission line.

Rrrrrright-o. Small town city bureaucrats on the clock (whether paid by the town or by Invenergy?) came like David to throw stones at "Big Agriculture" Goliath at the Missouri legislature this week. This story gets spun to make Invenergy the "victim".

The real victims are the family farmers whose properties will be burdened by the taking of new rights of way through productive fields for the express purpose of producing a profit for Invenergy's super-rich CEO Michael Polsky, who has a place on Forbe's list of billionaires. Polsky holds the power here... the power of greenbacks to buy political power and the power of eminent domain granted under antiquated Missouri laws to simply take property from family farms on a whim.

Because Grain Belt Express is a whim. It's not needed for any reliability, economic, or public policy purpose. If it was, it would have been ordered by one of the regional grid operators who are tasked with operating the transmission system. Instead, GBE is a voluntary merchant project. A merchant project is a business proposal. A businessman (Michael Polsky) proposes to build an electric transmission line between two points on the premise that power producers and power distributors will find value in shipping electricity between those two points. If the project doesn't find enough customers to make it profitable, there's no obligation to build and the businessman simply cancels the project before it is built.

Eminent domain should only be used for projects of public necessity, such as to keep the lights on. Economic desires are not a reason to take real property from private individuals.

This article wastes too much time on the supposed "savings" by these small towns.

The capacity will provide access to wind power that will cumulatively save the cities $12.8 million annually over 25 years.

That $12.8 million annual savings is complete and total fiction. Ask them to SHOW YOU THE MATH! They can't because it was calculated more than 5 years ago based on some very expensive power contracts that have since expired. Ask the cities to show you the math based on their current power contracts. Or, better yet, ask MJMEUC, who is the one actually making these deals. The small towns just go along with whatever MJMEUC negotiates for them, and MJMEUC just goes along with whatever is politically expedient and purportedly cheap, such as GBE's pie-in-the sky below cost capacity prices. You might also want to ask the towns (MJMEUC) if they are absolutely committed to the contract because, of course, they are not. MJMEUC can back out of the contract at any time, and so can GBE, if it decides not to build its project.

Invenergy must be feeling pretty scared if it is now resorting to threatening Missouri legislators.

If the promise of helping small cities save money doesn’t appeal to Missouri legislators, the threat of litigation might.

Peggy Whipple, an attorney representing Invenergy, said the retroactive nature of H.B. 2005 would put the state at risk of paying the company millions of dollars in legal damages for expenses it has already incurred.
The bill violates state and federal law on at least four grounds, Whipple said. Invenergy has already invested $52 million in the project and voluntarily obtained easements for the line across 1,200 of 1,700 parcels in Missouri and Kansas, she said. In addition, the company has executed $76 million in contracts with landowners and paid out $10 million upfront.

H.B. 2005 would require 50 percent of transmission capacity from a project to be dedicated to Missouri and it would give any county in the line’s path the power to block the project for any reason.
The provision violates the U.S. Constitution’s dormant commerce clause that prohibits states from interfering with interstate commerce, Whipple said.

Honestly, Peggy, your legal theories are full of crap. You're not a judge -- you're counsel for one side of the issue. Your opinion means nothing unless and until validated by a judge. Nobody required Invenergy to spend any money on this project. Eminent domain is not necessary to the Commerce Clause. Not granting eminent domain does not violate it. Invenergy's acquisition and spending have all been voluntary. But are we reaching the tipping point? Would passing this legislation be the pinnacle where Invenergy quits throwing good money after bad and decides not to engage in an expensive and time consuming court battle where victory is quite iffy? Only a judge can decide whether or not this legislation is constitutional. It is the legislature's job to make laws. It is the court's job to decide if the laws the legislature makes are constitutional.

And it is the legislature's job to SERVE THE PEOPLE, not the financial interests of out-of-state billionaires.

Money is power in politics. However, honest legislators will do the work of the people that elected them without being influenced by politics and corporate donations.

And let's end with this...

They came to Missouri’s capital from small cities and towns. They came despite the farm chores waiting for them at home. They came to protect their livelihoods and their heritage.

They’re not activists or lobbyists but farmers and ranchers who care little about politics but a lot about their future. They drove hours this week, and have done so too many times to count over the past 10 years, in order to push back against big energy and eminent domain for private gain and urge their elected representatives not to spike their right to own and use farm land to grow the food that provides for our nation's security and Missouri's economic prosperity.

Invenergy is the one with the power and it has shamelessly tossed money and influence around at the legislature every year in order to prevent modernizing Missouri's eminent domain laws to benefit the modern people of Missouri. Missouri's position under an out-of-state billionaire's thumb needs to end this year.

3 Comments

Invenergy and Special Interest Groups Mischaracterize Legislation to Prevent Passage

4/5/2022

1 Comment

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:

Defines "public service" to mean providing at least 50% of its capacity to serve Missourians.
Requires county commission approval of certificates to construct.
Requires transmission to provide at least 50% of its load to Missourians in order to use eminent domain.
Must compensate agricultural landowner at 150% of fair market value when using eminent domain.
Requires condemning commission to include at least one person who has been farming in the same county for at least 10 years.
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?

"Pull the plug" or place "roadblocks" on GBE.
Hamper Invenergy from pursuing condemnation.
Unconstitutionally and retroactively kill GBE.
Legislation is "short-sighted."
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

1 Comment

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?

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.

1 Comment

Averages Don't Keep The Lights On

3/26/2022

0 Comments

Here's a story that will scare you right to the core. The Midcontinent Independent System Operator says its system is volatile. What does that mean? Check out this article. It's what the mainstream media isn't telling you. As more and more variable generators are built, it's getting harder and harder to keep the lights on.

And there's this quote, which probably deserves some sort of speaking truth to power award:

“I caution you about averages,” Schug said. “Our extremes are much higher.”

That's right! All the "reports" and "studies" that claim we can run our country on 100% renewable energy are based on averages. Because renewables only produce when conditions are right, they are averaged together to produce an average amount of generation on paper. But MISO doesn't operate the grid on paper. It must balance load with generation in real time. Extremes happen in real time, not averages. As MISO continues to lose fossil fuel generators that can run when called, and replaces them with renewables that only run when they want to run, the amount of available generation MISO can call to serve load shrinks.

Wayne Schug, MISO’s vice president of strategy and business development, said a growing renewables fleet and rapidly changing weather is driving increasing volatility and an “inability to deal with it.”

By 2030, as little as 57% of the RTO’s fleet could be dispatchable, staff said. Dispatchable resources accounted for 84% of the fleet in 2020.

Schug said that since 2017, average daily output swings and forecasting errors have grown by gigawatts and percentages points, respectively. He said while the grid operator continues to get better at output forecasting, the expanding wind fleet has blotted out any signs of improvement.

If we're cutting the amount of dispatchable generation, what are we also doing to cut load? Not a thing. We're actually trying to add to load by switching to electric cars and heating. We're trying to add the entire energy load currently carried by natural gas and oil to the electric grid. A grid that already has trouble keeping up!

Reality is screaming here and nobody is paying attention.

Moeller said that for three days in 2020, MISO’s entire wind fleet in the upper Midwest failed to generate a megawatt. He also said unexpected cloud cover could make a solar farm “disappear within three minutes.”

Joundi said MISO is working with an aging generation fleet more prone to outages with increasingly uncertain return-to-service dates. He said the footprint’s current rate of generation retirement — propelled, in part, by state and federal policies — is outpacing members’ capacity replacements.
Staff expects the number of emergency near-misses to rise every year, Joundi said.

Joundi said that the control room now manages more intra-hour instability and intensifying “wind droughts,” where wind output drops off below forecasts.

Director Mark Johnson asked staff to invite a control room operator to a board meeting to address their recent experiences dealing with grid volatility.

I think we need to institute mandatory control room field trips for every blithe young environmentalist who insists we can become completely carbon free in just a few years by relying on wind and solar. Ditto for the lazy journalists who parrot this political prevarication because they're simply afraid that the monster they have created will cancel them if they tell the truth.

The averages only work on paper. The big idea that we can build a "national grid" to instantly ship excess renewable generation anywhere in the country also only works on paper. Renewables are not dispatchable. Importing power from other regions to keep the lights on during renewable volatility can only rely on dispatchable generation, like that produced by fossil fuels. But as we build more renewables and shut down more fossil fuels, we continue to make our power supply more and more volatile. You can't "borrow" power from a region that doesn't have enough to share because its own renewables aren't producing. If making a regional grid even 50% reliant on variable renewables like wind and solar requires the grid to import vast quantities of electricity from other regional grids, what's going to happen when all the regional grids are at 50% renewables? Who is left to supply the power at times when no region is producing enough, like after dark? You cannot rely on wind to pick up enough after dark to carry the entire solar load, and it's dark from coast to coast for a significant number of hours every day. Batteries, you say? Not mature enough yet. They can't store enough power, are very expensive, use many rare and toxic elements mined by slave labor in countries that hate us, and are not recyclable or sustainable. Wind and solar alone just can't cut it.

It's simply fantasy. Crazy, destructive fantasy!

And then the lights go out.

Don't ask an environmentalist or academic if we can provide 24/7 reliable power from 100% renewable energy sources. That's like asking a heart surgeon to fix your electric car. Ask someone who actually dispatches power and balances the grid. These folks are performing increasing acts of magic to keep the lights on and nobody is listening to their warnings because they prefer to revel is fantasy and "averages."

Is it going to take rolling black outs for this story to be told? Or will we just be asked to "suck it up" to save the planet when it does?

“We face a rapidly transforming energy landscape,” CEO John Bear told directors during a Board Week meeting, warning of a delicate load-supply balance.

He said when MISO introduced its ancillary services market 12 years ago, “load was the only thing that was moving around.”
“Everything else was pretty static and predictable,” Bear said. “Where we stand is not sustainable, and it’s not safe. We have a lot of work in front of us.”

0 Comments

Putting Congress in CHARGE of Energy Regulation

3/25/2022

1 Comment

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)
representatives of residential ratepayers, transmission providers,
environmental justice and equity groups, Tribal communities,
Independent System Operators,
Regional Transmission Organizations, consumer protection groups,
renewable 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

Who Is At Fault For Rising Transmission Rates?

3/23/2022

0 Comments

Retail electric rates are rising in Kansas. In this story, the Kansas Corporation Commission tries to shift blame to the legislature, but that's not the whole story. Transmission rates are rising because more transmission is being proposed and built. More transmission is being proposed and built to support renewable energy facilities and the export of Kansas wind to other states. The KCC is the one who approves the building of these new transmission facilities. If the KCC stopped acting like a rubber stamp approving every new transmission facility proposed in Kansas, whether it benefits Kansans or not, then the rates would not increase. End of story. It's the KCC's fault and only the KCC can control rising transmission rates.

We're constantly being told that renewables will lower our electricity rates because they have no fuel costs. But that's not exactly accurate, as the rising transmission fees in Kansas demonstrate. Connecting new renewable generators requires new and updated transmission, and much of the new transmission is being built to export renewable power to other states. Why should Kansans pay to export power that others will use? The Kansas state government loves new wind installations because they supposedly provide new "economic development" and jobs. But they don't really. Once built, there are few jobs. Even construction jobs aren't given to Kansans, but to a handful of national specialty companies that build high voltage electric transmission. Do renewable generators pay more taxes to localities? This is an open-ended question as generators are always looking to abate their tax liability or secure payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) deals. So, what exactly is Kansas getting from all this? Well, I suppose elected officials get generous campaign contributions from renewable energy companies, but the average Kansan is getting zip.

In the news article, the KCC blames statute KSA 66-1237. The statute says

Any electric utility subject to the regulation of the state corporation commission pursuant to K.S.A. 66-101, and amendments thereto, may seek to recover costs associated with transmission of electric power, in a manner consistent with the determination of transmission-related costs from an order of a regulatory authority having legal jurisdiction, through a separate transmission delivery charge included in customers' bills.

Who is the regulatory authority with legal jurisdiction to set interstate transmission rates? The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. States have no jurisdiction over interstate transmission rates but must pass the rate set by FERC through to customers. The state is not permitted to "trap" costs that FERC says the transmission owners may recover by denying them. This is clear in Evergy's filing at the KCC:

Company shall collect from applicable customers a Transmission Delivery Charge (TDC) based on its annual transmission revenue requirement (ATRR) for costs to be recovered under the following schedules of the Open Access Transmission Tariff for Service Offered by the Southwest Power Pool (SPP) for service to Company’s retail KCC-Jurisdictional customers.

The TDC Unit Charges included on the following sheets are designed to recover the retail transmission revenue requirement. The Company shall file to adjust TDC Unit Charges to reflect and track changes in FERC-approved rates for charges included in the ATRR according to the terms of this rate schedule.

The transmission rates in the TDC are set by FERC and collected pursuant to Southwest Power Pool tariffs.

Put the blame where it belongs... the overbuilding of interstate transmission projects ordered by SPP for benefit of the region as a whole, not just Kansans.

So, the next time you hear that your electric bill is going to go down if you use more renewable energy, remember this! The cost of building new generators and transmission to connect them will make your bill increase. Will your bill increase more than the lowered fuel costs you may receive from using more renewable energy? Of course. This story is undeniable proof.

Renewable energy profiteers, environmental groups and the federal government have a problem. When regular folks realize that renewables are actually increasing their electric bills, then renewables won't be so popular any longer. They really were hoping to keep the lid on the problem until they got all this stuff built and it was too late to change course. But with transmission rates being what they are, the cost increases happen in real time. The best they can do now is try to shift blame everywhere except where it really belongs.

It belongs to those who approve the building of new transmission for the purpose of exporting renewable electricity hundreds or thousands of miles from remote locations.

0 Comments

Kansas Rises Again

3/17/2022

0 Comments

Kansas is once again back in the fight against Grain Belt Express.

This news report says the Nemeha County Commission has decided not to modify its current moratorium on wind energy projects to allow the Grain Belt Express.

There's no word on how this might affect the project, but this may be the current scene at Invenergy headquarters.

0 Comments

Utilities + Bribery = $$$

3/9/2022

0 Comments

Well, would you look at that? Another state legislative leader gets indicted on charges that he engineered the success of utility profits through legislation in exchange for financial favors from the utility.

What are the odds that two powerful investor owned utilities participated in schemes to provide financial favors to state legislative leaders in exchange for legislation that financially benefited the utility in two different states? Are these two unrelated and isolated incidents that just so happened to be uncovered around the same time.... or is there a bigger scandal waiting to be uncovered?

FirstEnergy was outed in Ohio, and then it was ComEd's turn in Illinois. ComEd has been accused of providing jobs for people directed by Michael Madigan. How much of the money ComEd paid to these people in exchange for little to no work came out of the pockets of struggling electric consumers? In the case of FirstEnergy, it was millions that "accidentally" (or on purpose) got accounted for wrong and recovered through electric rates. ComEd is accused of funneling money through lobbying firms (which would not be recovered from ratepayers if ComEd accounted for it without "accident"), but also for paying a law firm for legal work that never occurred, hiring numerous paid interns, and appointing a ComEd board member that the company didn't really have a use for. All of those payments probably came out of the common man's pocket through electric rates.

When is FERC going to treat their rate cheaters like the criminals they are? When it is discovered through audit that the utility recovered expenditures it was not entitled to, FERC gives them a slap on the wrist and makes them give back the money they stole. There are no penalties or punishment whatsoever. The utility is free to go forth and commit the same errors again. Maybe they're caught at it in the future, or maybe they simply get away with it because nobody is paying attention.

But what happens when FERC detects market manipulation by an outsider, like an energy trader? These accused violators are hounded to the ends of the earth and assessed outrageous fines in the millions of dollars.

There's no equity here. FERC's utility pets are given free rein to steal as much as they want from electric consumers, while electric market traders are prosecuted for things that aren't even against FERC's rules, because the trader "should have known" that making money in electric markets was somehow wrong. How does this protect electric ratepayers? FERC's inequitable treatment of entities that steal from ratepayers needs to be fixed.

And there's probably plenty of stealing going on. What are the chances that if two totally separate utilities in two different states were caught bribing state officials for financial benefit that EVERY utility does the same, in some form or other? Of course they do. Despite flowery corporate ethics policies, making money trumps everything. Handing out money and favors is how utility profits are made. They all do it.

Time to crack down...

0 Comments

Announcing: The Dumbest Transmission Developer Ever!

3/3/2022

0 Comments

Ever notice how greed makes people dumb? It's especially prevalent in corporations, and New York based energy conglomerate Con Ed has become the new poster child for stupid corporate greed through the announcement of its new Maine Power Link transmission project.

Prediction: Con Ed is going to positively bleed money trying to make this project work, but ultimately it's going to fail and end up with a huge amount of debt on its balance sheet.

Why? Because it comes on the heels of another speculative merchant transmission project "for renewables" that was soundly defeated by the people of Maine in an historic referendum last fall. Perhaps Con Ed has never heard of the phenomena of transmission siting fatigue? Conventional wisdom says that once a community is hit with an unwanted transmission project it develops a knowledge base and weapons arsenal that make siting subsequent transmission lines through the same community a non-starter. Fool the people once, shame on you... but you'll never fool the same people twice.

What was it about the New England Energy Connect that the people of Maine found so objectionable? Was it an emotional response to "not being heard?" The people of Maine were heard all right, it's just that project developer CMP didn't want to compromise. It's not about the emotional feel-good of being heard; it's about the feeling that you matter and that your ideas and opinions can change the outcome. CMP never budged from its transmission plan. That's perhaps what Mainers found so objectionable. That and the ruination of their environment for the benefit of others "from away."

So here's Con Ed, announcing an overhead 345-kV transmission line from northern to southern Maine. Con Ed says it will "follow" existing transmission corridors. This means it will be sited adjacent to existing corridors, widening them and doubling the visual blight. Con Ed also says it may need to cut some new greenfield corridors through undisturbed areas. And it plans to do all this in more populated eastern Maine.

Never going to happen.

Con Ed pretends it is "trusted." As if they say it enough, it will become true. Rural communities don't trust companies from other places, especially New York City. New York City has nothing in common with rural Maine, and it shows.

“The Maine Power Link team recognizes that its success or failure hinges on a robust, open and transparent siting process, engaging with stakeholders from Day 1, before any land is purchased or applications filed,” it said. “We view this as an essential step in our process to protect the environment and meet our energy goals.”

But Con Ed has not revealed any of its routes, even in general terms, to the ultimate stakeholders: the affected landowners and communities.

Nachmias declined to discuss the specific routes the company is considering or where it would enter the regional grid.

This is NOT transparent siting from Day 1. Con Ed has already proven itself to be a vascillating prevaricator. The specific route is going to be the thing that kills this project.

Con Ed is busy trying to buy off environmental and economic development organizations in Maine to support its project. It absolutely resembles the NECEC project the first time I saw it.... list of local organizations that supported along with glowing, but sadly ignorant, supporting comments. Con Ed is trying way, way, way too hard. And the dumbest thing yet is that the people of Maine aren't fooled by this garbage, especially the second time around. They've been there, done this. They're not going to buy it.

Con Ed would be much smarter to develop a transmission plan that did NOT visit impacts on Maine. What's that? A transmission line buried on existing rights of way, such as road or rail.

Instead, Con Ed is just acting like The Dumbest Transmission Developer Ever. It's going to be about as popular as new Coke, the Sony Betamax, and hoverboards.

0 Comments

<<Previous

Forward>>

Powerful Farmers Harm Poor, Downtrodden Michael Polsky

Invenergy and Special Interest Groups Mischaracterize Legislation to Prevent Passage

Censorship and Propaganda Will Fail

Averages Don't Keep The Lights On

Putting Congress in CHARGE of Energy Regulation

Energy Independence Means Producing Your Own Energy

Who Is At Fault For Rising Transmission Rates?

Kansas Rises Again

Utilities + Bribery = $$$

Announcing: The Dumbest Transmission Developer Ever!

About the Author

About
StopPATH Blog

Need help opposing unneeded transmission?
Email me

Archives

Categories

About the Author

AboutStopPATH Blog

Archives

Categories

About
StopPATH Blog