I hear that PATH has begun their new advertising campaign, and like the greatest of straight men Charles Ryan Associates has set us up with the perfect punchline. Blah, blah, blah, old, decrepit grid, blah, blah, failing grid, blah, blah, blah *insert fear mongering here* To keep moving power forward! Took about 1.5 seconds to tag the end of it ...to New Jersey! And I'm not the only one who thought of it, so there ya go, another joke of an advertising campaign that's costing the ratepayers thousands, if not millions.
I haven't seen or heard the commercials, but those who have report that it has something to do with the grid being on the verge of failure.
Absolutely not true, but if it were, why would that be? Because companies like Allegheny Energy and American Electric Power don't want to "waste" money on things like maintaining and modernizing what they already have. There's no profit in that for them. Instead, they want to build a brand new transmission line and rake in 14.3%. This would be like buying a new car every time you needed an oil change. Is that the financially smart thing to do? Only if someone else is paying for the new car, and that's precisely what's happening here. The ratepayers in the 13-state PJM region are paying the cost of constructing PATH and the power companies bank a sweet amount of profit.
So, what happens to all those "old, decrepit, failing" transmission lines? Unfortunately, those "old, decrepit, failing" transmission lines are what keep the power on in West Virginia, but we don't matter. Classic, isn't it? West Virginia is expected to bend over again and again and "sacrifice" for the good of the bastions of urban sagacity on the east coast. Others are driving the shiny, new car we pay for, and we're left to make due with a beat-up, old, pick'em up truck that runs on two cylinders.
Fortunately, it doesn't have to be this way. Dominion Virginia Power has proposed an alternative to PATH that will modernize existing transmission lines.
I haven't seen or heard the commercials, but those who have report that it has something to do with the grid being on the verge of failure.
Absolutely not true, but if it were, why would that be? Because companies like Allegheny Energy and American Electric Power don't want to "waste" money on things like maintaining and modernizing what they already have. There's no profit in that for them. Instead, they want to build a brand new transmission line and rake in 14.3%. This would be like buying a new car every time you needed an oil change. Is that the financially smart thing to do? Only if someone else is paying for the new car, and that's precisely what's happening here. The ratepayers in the 13-state PJM region are paying the cost of constructing PATH and the power companies bank a sweet amount of profit.
So, what happens to all those "old, decrepit, failing" transmission lines? Unfortunately, those "old, decrepit, failing" transmission lines are what keep the power on in West Virginia, but we don't matter. Classic, isn't it? West Virginia is expected to bend over again and again and "sacrifice" for the good of the bastions of urban sagacity on the east coast. Others are driving the shiny, new car we pay for, and we're left to make due with a beat-up, old, pick'em up truck that runs on two cylinders.
Fortunately, it doesn't have to be this way. Dominion Virginia Power has proposed an alternative to PATH that will modernize existing transmission lines.
RSS Feed