Breaker one-nine, breaker one-nine...  you can buy Coors in your own neighborhood these days, Gramps!

Whoopsie... it looks like your big city arrogance is showing just a bit!  I think I also see your AARP card.

But anyhow...  it's absolutely NOT TRUE that renewable energy is exclusively located in "very far away" places.  It's just that very special city dwellers of a certain political persuasion have convinced each other of their special-ness, and their ability to be so much gosh darn smarter than goofy hillbillies of a different political persuasion located in very far away places.  Really... you're not all that.

They're thirsty for energy in Washington, D.C. and there's energy in West Virginia!  They're thirsty for chemicals, fertilizer, teflon pans and other smelly and dangerous manufactured goods in the city as well, however they don't want them bad enough to foul their own nest.  And why should they when another state volunteers to foul its own nest to supply cheap, messy goods for city dwellers?  Herein lies last century's problem.

In modern times, we recognize a moral obligation to supply our own needs without trashing someone else to get them.  Don't want centralized energy generators industrializing your community?  Don't want your city parks filled with solar panels, or your beaches lined with wind turbines?  Guess what?  Very far away places don't want it either!  And they want to be burdened with infrastructure that serves the needs of others even less.

There's absolutely no reason why coastal cities can't be filled with solar panels and lined with wind turbines.  If that energy source doesn't suit you, find another way to generate the energy you need.  What's not acceptable is trashing pristine places very far away with industrial energy infrastructure, and then imposing on everyone between you and that place to make way for your special renewable energy transmission line.  None of this infrastructure benefits the people in the very far away places and actually harms their productivity, health and well-being.

Wake up, Gramps!  Coors is crap beer.  You can get something much better brewed in your own community these days.  Gosh, by golly, gee whiz gramps!  Doggone it, you've done it again, by gum!  Has anyone seen my  Metamucil?

 When are we going to start caring more about people and less about politics?

Texas got caught in an armageddon created by its energy policies last week.  People suffered.  Energy companies raked in the dough.  Texas has a lot of problems to solve, and politics can only make it worse.

What caused Texageddon?  Finger pointing was swift and politically biased.  Some were quick to say wind caused the crash.  But just as swiftly, the finger got pointed at fossil fuels instead.  The short answer was... both!  It's not about fuel type, it's about being unprepared.

The avalanche of politically-motivated social media memes actually made people dumber.  I think my favorite stupid meme was the picture of a wind turbine in some cold, cold place that was supposedly operating (but there was no way to tell, it was a photo, not a video).  The illogical message was that if a wind turbine can work in some other cold place, it did not fail in Texas.  But it did.  On a grand scale.  The problem with Texas turbines is that they were not properly winterized for an event of this magnitude.  The one in the cold place was winterized, obviously.

The first problem in Texas is that the unwinterized wind generators went off line.  Yes, they did.  Natural gas made up the difference, for a while.  Coal and nukes are pretty much baseload that run at a steady rate.

But then gas started to have issues because it couldn't get enough fuel.  The problem there?  Non-winterized equipment and fuel scarcity because more gas was being directed to heating homes than normal.  Then one of the nukes went offline due to a frozen pipe.  Again, lack of winterization adequate to withstand the unusual weather was the problem. 

The result?  Disaster!  What began as rolling blackouts stopped rolling because there just wasn't enough energy to go around.  Power went out and stayed out in some areas.

So, which kind of generator caused the problem?  ALL of them!  The problem isn't with the generators, it's the lack of winterization and lack of fuel for the gas generators.  If wind had failed and all the other generators stayed up, the tragedy probably wouldn't have happened. 

Did wind cause it?  No, not by itself.  However, Texageddon is a shot across wind's bow, and an alarming wake up call for those who think we can power our country on 100% industrial scale wind and solar in the future.  Big wind is big business!  A lot of wind is built because it's profitable due to tax credits.  It has zero fuel cost and much of the cost of building it is offset by subsidies.  Wind can offer its energy into the market at close to zero.  When wind is working, it can be the cheapest energy in the market.  However, cheap wind makes other generators that can operate when called more expensive.  They don't sell as much when times are good.  Expensive generators close if they don't sell enough power to make a profit.  The more wind we build, the more these expensive plants close until we're left with nothing but wind.  And wind cannot generate when called.  It's a simple matter of too many eggs in one basket.  When wind fails, there may not be enough dispatchable generation left to keep things running.  That's the problem with wind.  If Texas had less frozen wind and more coal generators, could things have turned out differently?  Possibly.

The biggest problem in Texas is its lack of a capacity market.  A capacity market pays generators to be ready to generate a certain amount of power when called.  If a generator being paid for capacity doesn't deliver when called, there are severe financial penalties.  Since Texas doesn't have one, it doesn't pay that extra to have generators on standby, making its energy cheaper when times are good.  Texas thought it didn't need one because its market pays big bucks to generators who can deliver in times of scarcity.  The thought was that the opportunity to cash in big time during scarcity would be enough to make generators spend money winterizing their equipment so they could take advantage of the opportunity when it arose.  But that's not what happened... generators were making enough money during the good times that they didn't want to spend the money to winterize, because winterizing would make the cost of their power go up.  The result is that many generators went offline.  The ones that stayed up made huge piles of money.  Of course, that's money that comes from electric consumers, some now facing bills in the thousands because their power stayed on.  This isn't the way to run a power market!  With a functioning capacity market that penalizes generators who can't produce the capacity they are paid for, a generator doesn't take the risk and does spend the money it needs to keep its generator running during cold weather.

Another annoyance... the social media posts blaming "deregulation" for the crisis.  Suddenly, every facebooker is an energy expert that actually has no idea what deregulation is, or that many other states are deregulated without the same problems happening.  The difference?  A functioning capacity market.

And then there's the ignorant wailing about Texas running its own "grid."  If Texas subjugated itself to federal control, just like magic, things would be different?  No.  The reality is that Texas's neighbors were also having supply issues and rolling blackouts.  There was no power to spare.  Times were tough all over.  Transmission lines, by themselves, don't make electricity.  You can plug in all the extension cords you want, but if there is no electricity in the socket, nothing works.

Texageddon has become a political volleyball.  There are real concerns about a future reliant on just a couple of centralized energy sources that cannot always produce when called, and how subsidies and "green new deal" unicorn farts are making this issue worse.  And then there's the other side, who insist Texageddon is a result of political power and fossil fuels.

The answer?  Distributed energy sources.  Put your eggs in as many baskets as possible and you're less likely to break them all when one basket crashes.

Texas has a lot of work to do to fix its energy market.  There is nothing political about that.  Maybe all the armchair electrical experts can now move on to other idiotic political topics and give this one a rest.

I'm not going to do a long post about this... because this whole blog is about this!

Distributed generation is a better idea than big transmission to make the switch to renewables.

Here's why.

Read the article.  Go ahead, click on it.  Here's just a snippet...

You know, I thought I'd seen just about everything there was to see in the stable of recycled bad energy policy ideas fluffed up and re-introduced as the solution to today's energy "problems."

But wait... there's always more to see!

Oh, c'mon, Joe!  You already know how this goes... or are you developing memory issues?

Back in 2009, when he was Governor of West Virginia, Joe Manchin came up with the idea of a "transmission tax" levied on high-voltage lines built through the state.  In exchange for Joe directing the PSC to approve the controversial TrAIL and PATH electric transmission projects across the state, the utilities involved eagerly agreed to be "taxed" by West Virginia.  Apparently Joe hasn't forgotten that part.

But it looks like he did forget that West Virginia doesn't have a transmission tax.  His bill died a quiet, suffocated death... but not after one all-night drive to Charleston in order to testify at a legislative hearing for the bill.  After driving all night, catching a couple hours of sleep, and hustling over to the state house, we were met with an almost empty chamber.  None of the elected officials even cared to listen to citizen comments on the hastily arranged hearing.  But still, it failed.

Why did it fail?  West Virginia cannot tax interstate commerce, essentially running a toll booth for electricity to cross the state.  That runs afoul of the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

Second of all, utilities don't pay taxes, state or otherwise.  Utilities add any taxes they pay to the rates they charge to their electric customers.  Basically, the electric customers of West Virginia would pay for the bribe to the state in exchange for approving a transmission project that may be detrimental to their interests.  The utilities wouldn't be out a dime... so why not agree to let West Virginians pay to bribe their own Public Service Commission for benefit of the utility company?

Next let's examine electric rates.  States have jurisdiction over retail electric service.  The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has jurisdiction over interstate wholesale transmission.  FERC is the entity who would determine the rates charged by the transmission companies Joe wanted to tax.  A state cannot alter or block a federal transmission rate but must pass it through in the rates charged to retail customers unscathed.  There's no way for a state to stop the transmission utility from charging the tax back to electric customers in the state.  As well, states have no say in how transmission rates are developed and cannot demand that FERC remove the tax or bribe costs from the utility's rate.  FERC's rates allow utilities to add all taxes paid to their rates.  This isn't going to change.

And then Joe had issues with how the proceeds of his transmission tax were going to be distributed.

Create a pool of imaginary cash... and then watch people fight over it.

Of course, Joe's idea was that 1/3 of the money would go to provide "electric rate relief" to all WV electric consumers; 1/3 would go to county governments in counties crossed by the new transmission lines; and 1/3 would go to the West Virginia Infrastructure and Jobs Development Council (WVIJDC) to be pissed away on "economic development" schemes to bring new industry to West Virginia (whether that industry was beneficial or not).  The WVIJDC pays to build things and gives away tax breaks for super rich corporations in exchange for locating in West Virginia.  West Virginians roll out the red carpet and pay for everything in exchange for some promised future "jobs." 

Here's who didn't get 1/3 of the money, or any share at all:  landowners.  That's right, hundreds of private landowners were subject to condemnation of an easement across their property and threatened with eminent domain suits if they didn't sign voluntarily, in order to make way for the transmission line's path (or trail, if you will).  In exchange for the permanent devaluation of their property, the burden of living and maybe working underneath a high-voltage transmission line, a landowner would be paid a "market value" pittance for just the new right-of-way (not the whole property).  These landowners were asked to sacrifice their own home, well-being and economic future so that someone else could turn on their lights (but let's be real here, none of these projects were actually needed).  They would pay for the project, just like everyone else, and maybe get a portion of the same electric rate relief credit everyone else was getting.  They'd get the same county services and WVIJDC "benefits" as everyone else.  But they actually had to sacrifice something personal for it.  Nobody else did.  They all received the "benefits" without any skin in the game!

So, you'd have thought that Joe would have learned this lesson back in 2009.  States cannot demand a ransom in exchange for approving a transmission project.  State utility commissions are actually directed by statute to consider certain things when ruling on a transmission application.  Ransoming a portion of the transmission utility's earnings is not one of them... in any state.  There's no way for a state to appropriate a portion of a federally regulated utility's earnings.  And don't you think if utilities gave away part of their regulated earnings to states that they wouldn't go back to FERC and ask for more?  A transmission utility's rate of return is set through a rather complicated process whereby the utility is allowed to earn a just and reasonable return on its investment.  There's no room in there to pay bribes to states in exchange for transmission permits.

Good old Joe.  He sure is getting older.  He may not be getting smarter.

It's every landowner's nightmare... a faceless government agency threatens to use the solemn power of eminent domain to take private property.  Many of us have been there before.  But what about when it's a for-profit corporation that's threatening to have the federal government take your property for their greedy "clean energy" scheme?  What if you smell some sort of swampy conspiracy between the federal government and the energy corporation to gang up on you?

Corporations only tell you what they want you to know.  They have no obligation to be transparent.  However, our government is subject to the transparency of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).  While FOIAs may be commonplace for sophisticated information gatherers, like the media,* they aren't routine for landowners subject to government condemnation.

For one Arkansan, the smell wafting out of the Clean Line Energy Partners/U.S. Department of Energy honeymoon suite was too much to bear.  He determined to get to the bottom of it and find out just how much chummy collusion was going on.  And why shouldn't he?  This chummy collusion between government and industry was threatening to run a new high-voltage DC electric transmission line right through his father's farm.  His father was a hard-working veteran who had served his country honorably... and this was how his country was repaying him for his sacrifice.

So, our landowner hero, let's call him Joel,** submitted a FOIA to the U.S. DOE in May of 2014 asking for documents showing any communication between DOE & Clean Line (CLEP) regarding transmission line route maps.  This curiosity was created by DOE itself, when it admitted there were preliminary route maps being used for internal purposes that were not to be shared with the public.  The DOE managed to cough up some documents in July of 2014, although not what Joel was looking for.  But, hey, at least they tried.

And because they tried, Joel also tried.  He tried again with another FOIA in the summer of 2014, asking for more documents showing correspondence between DOE, CLEP, and the Southwestern Power Administration (a federal power marketer).  This time Joel got the hairy eyeball from DOE's FOIA contractor, eGlobalTech.  The contractor determined Joel was an "other" requester because he was a mere landowner subject to eminent domain taking by the DOE and was not entitled to have his fee waived or his request expedited.  Joel was informed that he'd have to pay a fee to receive information that required more than 2 hours of search time or totaled more than 100 pages.  Imagine that... you are being threatened that a government agency is going to condemn and take your property, and you don't even have as much right to information about that process as a reporter has to a story that doesn't even personally affect them!  But eventually, Joel did receive another pile of non-responsive fluff that didn't tell him how the government was communicating with CLEP.  They must have been sharing some walkie-talkies because they weren't sending written messages to each other.

Later on, in the Fall of 2014, Joel tried again by submitting a limited and targeted request for information.  This time he asked for any documents regarding the "Management Committee" consisting of DOE and CLEP personnel that was required to meet by a signed agreement between the two.  If there was a requirement to have quarterly meetings, surely there would be some agendas, emails, and other meeting materials.  Perhaps these meetings were where DOE and CLEP were communicating?  Joel's request was again processed by his "friend" at eGlobalTech.  This time he was advised that a fee would apply to his request.  He was quoted an exact price of $798.90.  Joel sent the DOE a check for $800 and waited several months to receive the documents.  What he received was seven pages of repetitive emails about travel and lodging and when/where to meet for breakfast in Houston.  Completely useless... and for that he paid more than $100 per page?  But wait... the story doesn't end there.  Four months later, the DOE mysteriously returned Joel's $800 check uncashed and without explanation.

Figuring that his targeted request was too narrow, and increasingly curious how DOE and CLEP were communicating now that DOE had agreed to "partner" with CLEP to use federal eminent domain to take his farm, Joel tried a wider request in 2016.  He asked for all communications between the two parties.  Apparently it did successfully capture what Joel wanted, because the DOE has STILL not completed that request, nearly 5 years later.

Joel's contact on this request was a contractor from Central Research.  First, the woman tried to substitute another party's completed FOIA for the information Joel requested.  When he didn't accept that, she quoted him a price to fulfill his request between $1249.40 and $4997.60.  Right down to the penny!  That ought to make Joel re-think things, right?  Wrong.  Despite the offer to provide other parties' FOIA responses at no cost if he would only close his request, Joel persevered by asking about payment arrangements.  The contractor said she would work up a more detailed cost estimate and get back to him to arrange payment.  But she didn't.  When Joel later inquired about the hold up, she again said she was working on it and would be in touch.  But again... crickets.

Finally in January, 2017, the contractor informed Joel that all the information he was seeking had been provided to others and therefore there would no charge for his request and that it was in process.

In May, 2017 (a year after the original request, mind you) the contractor popped back up and offered Joel another substitute for the information he requested.  She offered him an index of documents (a list of documents, not the actual documents) provided to a federal court in Arkansas as part of a lawsuit against the DOE.  Joel smartly rejected this substitute of information that was already publicly available.  Growing disgusted with DOE's contractor's foot-dragging, Joel contacted another government agency to see if he could light a fire somewhere.  Although the federal agency demurred to  having authority to force DOE to do anything, it admitted it had contacted DOE about the request and that DOE had promised to finish it and produce the information within 2 weeks.  This was May 26, 2017.

Finally, at the end of August 2017, Joel received his first "partial response" to his FOIA request containing 409 pages of non-responsive fluff that told him nothing.  After that, DOE seemed to forget about his request entirely.

In 2018, Joel submitted another FOIA request to the DOE seeking the same basic documents.  This was met with a detailed response from a different Central Research contractor who, again, tried to get Joel to accept prior FOIA productions as a substitute for his own.  This contractor also let Joel know that he was also responsible for the dropped 2016 request which was "still being processed."  When Joel again insisted on having his request fulfilled as written, the contractor once again clammed up and disappeared.

In October of 2019 (see, another year later!) a different contractor with Central Research popped up to let Joel know that he was now responsible for the 2016 request.  He said, and I quote:

He also tried to get Joel to "combine his outstanding requests under one FOIA number" and close out all the old requests that were clogging up productivity levels.  He was also requested to substitute different FOIA productions for his own request.  But why would he do this when the 2016 request was fulfilled and ready to be delivered?  He did say it was completed and under review, right?

So, Joel stuck it out, waiting anxiously for 2 months for his requested documents.  Someone really ought to do a welfare check on that reviewer... we suspect that this person may have perished at his/her desk and is still undiscovered because the "complete document set" never has shown up... to this day.

But wait... on January 26, 2021, Joel received a note from a new contractor with Wits Solutions advising him that he was now assigned to Joel's 2016 request and would be his new contact.

And what about the outstanding 2018 request?  In February of 2020, a year ago, Joel received a note from a new contractor at Central Research claiming that she was now assigned and working on that request.

Near as I can figure, Joel never received the documents he requested in 2016.  He never received the documents he requested in 2018.  Confirming these requests are still open is the raw data from DOJ's Annual Report of DOE FOIA requests.  Both of these requests, classified as "simple" requests are still outstanding with no action.  Why is it that this is acceptable?  When is DOE going to clean up its huge list of outstanding FOIA requests?  It turns out that DOE has a less than stellar record of complying with FOIA requests.  Is it DOE policy?  Or is it the result of a contractor zoo culture of "pass the buck?"  Joel's FOIAs are contractor hot potatoes... passed from one contractor to another without any resolution.

Is Joel giving up?  No.  Although the transmission project in question was cancelled in 2018 (quietly and without fanfare) and Clean Line Energy Partners went belly up a short time later, the question still remains... how did DOE and CLEP communicate when the project was active?  Joel hypothesizes that perhaps DOE has mastered the art of mental telepathy, an amazing scientific discovery!  I wish they would share this with the rest of us!

I would also like to know why DOE, in all its governmental beneficence, has not been more forthcoming with information for a landowner subject to its exercise of eminent domain over private property?  And what does this bode for the future, where politicians are cheering the use of federal eminent domain for new transmission of dubious necessity?  Is our federal government getting more transparent, or, as Joel's experience reveals, more murky?

Shame on you, DOE!

Oh, the arrogance of the elite.  It's all about making money, it's not about "climate change" or saving the planet.  Packaging their greed as altruism and cashing in on all the green washing of the past 20 years is simply a way to pull the wool over the eyes of the people who are going to pay for it all. 

It's time for energy consumers to get a little "woke" themselves.

Transmission-loving front group Americans for a Clean Energy Grid (ACEG) has been pouring out the propaganda and plans for a weak and clueless federal government to adopt in order to ensure their payday.  As mentioned before, ACEG is composed not of "Americans" as we understand the term to incorporate everyone, but an elite group of utility interests that see big money to be had by building new transmission infrastructure on a grand scale.  They would be more aptly named Transmission Profiteers for Building New Transmission (TPBNT).

Released this week, TPBNT's newest report was feted by a gaggle of former FERC commissioners who no longer have influence over regulatory policy but are still eager to cash in on their former positions.  The report is full of the same old stuff... making up new "benefits" for transmission, changing the transmission planning process to make Big Transmission the solution to every problem, and allocating costs so widely that consumers may not notice the increase in their bill caused by all this new infrastructure they're paying for.

One of the former FERCers at the fete exclaimed:

Another picked up on the cute enthusiasm for forcing consumers to pay for infrastructure they may not need:

Guess what?

No.  HELL NO!

We don't need to double or triple the amount of long-distance transmission and ignore distributed generation of local renewables, which can effect your infinitesimal world-wide carbon lowering goals much better, much cheaper, and much faster.  These chuckleheads begin and end their policy permutations with a complete fallacy.

Who says that all renewable resources are located so far from urban load pockets that we "need" new, large regional and inter-regional transmission projects?  What about offshore wind and local/regional solar?  Seems to me that those things are being built and will NOT benefit from new long-distance transmission.  In fact, they would benefit from smaller, targeted upgrades to existing transmission.   If we put all our eggs into the remote renewables plus new long-distance transmission basket, we are effectively playing kingmaker over generation supply and creating a future stranded asset that consumers will be paying for decades into the future.

Another gem:

Not a chance.  There is no world in which pumping more complicated "facts" onto landowners affected by new overhead transmission is going to make them think they should willingly sacrifice their home, business, and well-being for new transmission.  New overhead transmission is a non-starter.  Period.

Underground that stuff on existing public rights-of-way.  That's the only chance to avoid landowner and community opposition, by removing them from the equation entirely.

I do see that TPBNT has another sneaky plan to remove landowners from the equation by giving states a role in regional transmission planning in order to get their buy-in before affected landowners and communities find out about it and have a chance to influence the state regulators.

Don't you think that transmission developers have tried that many times over already?  The scheme to approach local governments and elected officials to seek their buy-in before transmission plans are publicly announced has happened over and over again.  However, it never works.  Once those officials, who thought the transmission project was a good idea when it was presented in a one-sided vacuum, are approached by their constituents they always flip and join the opposition when other facts creep into the sanitized plan they were fed.  And there's that voting thing... local electeds are big fans of self-preservation and they know who votes in local elections.  It's not transmission developers.

As ominous and terrible as all this sounds, remember how long it takes to melt or redirect the iceberg of public policy, regulations, and judicial review.  They'd be lucky to get even close in four years, never mind the two they actually have before Congress makes another seismic shift.

Why not get onboard with energy plans that consumers and landowners can support instead of continuing to beat your heads against a brick wall with all the confidence of elite arrogance?  We see you for who you really are.

That's about the only conclusion I can come to after reading this blurb penned by one of Invenergy's most avid supporters... conveniently inspired to write an op-ed just when new legislation to restrict eminent domain abuse was heard by a Missouri House committee.  Invenergy's cheerleader said:

Woah, woah, woah there, sport.  39 communities affected by the project know a good deal when they see one?  What 39 communities would that be?  Do you mean the 39 communities who belong to MJMEUC and will be the beneficiaries of MJMEUC's below cost contract to buy transmission service from Grain Belt Express?  I kind of think that's what you meant to say... but those communities are not AFFECTED BY THE PROJECT.  By and large, they're miles away from any new infrastructure constructed through other communities that won't receive any benefit at all from the project.

Other communities are affected by the project, not the 39 who are party to MJMEUC's "good deal."  The 39 communities on the receiving end of GBE's below cost pricing know a good deal when they see one, however they simply don't care who has to suffer to make their "good deal" possible.  It's kind of like finding a cash-stuffed wallet on the sidewalk, picking it up, and making absolutely no effort to find its owner.  Finders keepers, right?  Having such a "good deal" dumped in your lap comes with blinders to the misfortune of others?  Is that what Missouri wants to show everyone?  Morally bankrupt opportunistic "good deals"?

Anyhow, I hear the committee hearing went well for the landowners who attended and spoke to protect their property rights.  Keep up the good fight!

P.S.  Yes, I know the op-ed is full of other misinformation, but honestly it's not worth writing about.  Nobody believes any of it.

Of course Transource filed exceptions to the Administrative Law Judge's recommended denial of its unnecessary transmission project.  That shouldn't come as any surprise.  But what is surprising is all the mansplaining required to inform the PA PUC that its job is merely to site the transmission project.  Transource says that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has authority to approve transmission projects that affect interstate transmission rates.  Transource explains that the only role state utility commissions have is to determine where the project is going because a state may not deny a transmission project permit.

On the one hand, Transource says that the PUC is preempted from having any role in a regionally planned transmission project, except to decide siting and construction issues, but on the other hand, it begs the PUC to approve its transmission project.

Does Transource really expect the PA PUC to roll over and make itself irrelevant?  If states were obligated to accept the RTO's determination of "need", it upends the entire world of state authority to permit transmission projects.  Most states have statutory requirements to determine (for themselves!) whether a transmission project is needed.  Sure, they can consider what the RTO says about need, but they have to make their own determination based upon state law.  Transource purports that the state's "need" criteria are satisfied by simply accepting what PJM says.  However, PJM's planning and "need" determinations are not subject to Pennsylvania law.

FERC has jurisdiction over interstate transmission RATES.  That means the rates transmission projects approved by states may charge to customers.  FERC also has jurisdiction over the actions of the RTO, and can require that they plan transmission.  And that's where FERC's jurisdiction stops.  FERC simply cannot permit transmission projects.  That's a job for the individual states.  Only a state may issue a permit for a transmission project.

If the PA PUC accepts Transource's assertion that it may not reject a transmission project approved by PJM, it sets a dangerous precedent whereby states would be rubber-stamping yes men who abrogate their authority over transmission to the federal government.  Why would any state ever do this?  No one ever willingly relinquishes their power.

Transource also gets all wadded up over the Judge's independent evaluation of the evidence presented and determination of the facts.  It's up to the judge to determine the facts from the evidence presented.  Only the judge can determine which pieces of evidence have greater weight.  However, Transource insists that its evidence is the ONLY evidence worth evaluating and therefore the judge must accept Transource's evidence as superior to all other evidence and simply agree with Transource's purported facts.  Judges are fact finders.  It's what they do.  They determine the facts based on the evidence, and then apply the law to the facts in order to make a judgement.  That's exactly what ALJ Barnes did in the Transource case.  She simply did not believe everything Transource said, when compared to conflicting evidence from other parties.

For instance, Transource's expert testified that transmission lines do not interfere with GPS systems used to guide farmers.  Transource's expert is not a farmer.  He's never driven a GPS-guided piece of farm equipment underneath a transmission line.  However, actual farmers who have driven GPS-guided farm equipment underneath transmission lines testified that there is interference.  The judge weighed these two pieces of conflicting evidence and decided to take the word of the person who actually has experience farming underneath existing transmission lines.  Transource nearly had a conniption over that.  How could the judge accept the testimony of a lay person over its expert?  Don't believe your lying eyes!

It hasn't been lost on me that the judge is a woman.  It obviously isn't lost on Transource, either.  The tone of Transource's exceptions brief crosses the line into the realm of mansplaining.  What's mansplaining?

Transource says over and over again that the judge simply doesn't understand things.  Tut, tut, tut, there, there, little lady, you simply don't understand the manly world of electric transmission, let me explain it to you so you understand.

Excuse me... but this is an experienced Administrative Law Judge.  She didn't get where she is today by being a silly wallflower.  She understands transmission perfectly well, she just didn't agree with Transource.  She wasn't intimidated by PJM's complicated explanations about why this transmission project is needed.  Maybe the RTO's overly-complicated evidence and testimony is designed to confuse judges with an ego?  The judge is cast into the role of the silly townsfolk in the transmission version of The Emperor's New Clothes.  Does the judge side with the transmission company because she doesn't understand and wants to avoid looking dumb?  Or does she point her finger and declare the transmission company naked (and full of crap)?

Is it possible that an experienced ALJ got everything wrong?  And is it likely that the PUC Commissioners will toss out her decision in its entirety and approve the project anyhow?  It remains to be seen, but I think that stuff only happens in fairy tales.

Up next... other parties may file replies to Transource's exceptions.  Then the Commissioners review everything and make their decision.

Here's another way "Big Green" and "Big Utility" are planning to dip into your pocket.  It's no secret that building new transmission is enormously expensive.  We're talking billions for the big projects that cross states.  But perhaps you haven't noticed lumpy spikes in your electric bill that correspond with new transmission projects.  That's because the costs are added gradually, and spread out over as many ratepayers as possible.  One of the utilities' favorite allocation analogies is to think of the cost of new transmission as "just a few pennies" on your bill.  However, if you consider that there's over 60 million ratepayers in PJM alone, and if each one of them was paying "just a few pennies" for just one new transmission project, then the owner of the transmission project's payday looks like this:

The trick is to allocate costs across as many customers as possible so that no one will notice how much it actually costs.

Let's go back... way back to the early 2000's.  The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued a rule that required new electric generators to pay their own costs to connect to the existing transmission system.  Costs could include the line from the generator to the nearest transmission line, as well as any costs that result from upgrades to the existing transmission system caused by the increased injection of power from the new generator.  This rule ensured that generation owners sited their new generators efficiently by combining the cost of building and operating the generator with the costs to the transmission system caused by the building of that generator.  Just like it wouldn't be cost effective or logical for Walmart to build a store out in the middle of nowhere and then demand that someone else pay to build the road to connect it to the nearest town, it's not logical to build electric generators out in the middle of nowhere and then demand that regional electric consumers pay the cost of connecting it to the transmission system.  A generator's location must be balanced with its costs.  If the added transmission costs make its price of electricity too high to sell, then maybe another generator located closer to the load it would serve would end up being more economic for consumers.  In this way, generators located closer to the consumers they serve actually become cheaper.  They're also more reliable.  And more economic for the community because their energy dollars stay within their community or region.

Everything worked fine under FERC's rule for years.  However, taxpayer-subsidized renewable energy generators wanted to build big in order to suck up as many of your tax dollars as possible.  The Midwest looked like just the place... lots of land and few neighbors combined with good natural resources.  But the Midwest soon became over-saturated with renewable energy projects.  Fewer people, ya know, much less demand for electricity.  The renewable developers thought it was a good idea to continue to build in the Midwest, where the electricity was not needed, but to ship the electricity produced to population centers on both coasts.  They soon used up all the available transmission.  The Midwest grid operator, MISO, even planned and built a suite of "MVP" transmission projects designed to open new pathways for renewable generators not yet built.  Guess who paid for this overly expensive gift to renewable energy developers?  The electric consumers in MISO, although maybe other regions importing MISO's new renewable energy supply may have benefited more than MISO's consumers. 

Recently though, renewable energy developers have hit a wall.  They need not just another suite of MVP projects, but several of them.  They need for regional transmission planners to plan new transmission that presumes new generators will be built in the middle of nowhere and need to be connected.  And here's the thing... if the regional grid operator plans and orders the building of new transmission to serve the willy-nilly and self-serving profit-seeking of private energy corporations, then end-user electric consumers pick up all the costs.  That's YOU!  Instead of the renewable generator's developer picking up the costs of connecting its new, for-profit electricity factory, he wants to shift the costs to YOU.

If the costs of connecting and transmitting electricity from these new generators is separated from the cost of building and operating the generator, what happens?  The cost of the generation appears to be much cheaper than it really is.  Say Plant A can generate electricity in Lower Slobovia for 3 cents, but it costs 10 cents for transmission upgrades that connect it to Metro City.  Plant B, proposed to be build in Metro City can generate electricity for 7 cents, but doesn't require transmission upgrades.  If you simply compare the cost of the power (3 cents for Lower Slobovia vs. 7 cents for Metro City), then the Lower Slobovia generator is the more economic choice for Metro City residents.  However, if you add in the transmission upgrade costs, the Metro City generator is 6 cents cheaper than the Lower Slobovia one and way more economic for Metro City-ites.

In either scenario, the ultimate users of the electricity will pay the costs of the electricity, but if you separate out the costs of the upgrades and slide them into consumer electric bills another way they may not notice, maybe they wouldn't object to paying more for electricity from Lower Slobovia because they simply wouldn't know.

That's exactly what a front group of renewable energy developers and transmission developers are demanding in a new "report" recently issued by the Astroturf-y sounding "Americans for a Clean Energy Grid."  These entities stand to make a collective bundle of cash if they can continue to build new generators in Lower Slobovia, along with new transmission to connect these generators to Metro City.  In order to do this, they have to convince FERC to change this rule and knowingly shift costs among consumers in a way they may not understand or notice.  However, they want to do A LOT of it, with some calling for doubling or tripling the amount of electric transmission in this country.  No matter how widely that's cost allocated, they won't be able to hide the gigantic spikes in your electric bill.  There's a limit to how much can be hidden by expanding the captive consumers who pay for it. 

It also hurts electric consumers in Metro City, who could maybe get cheaper electricity from local generation in their own community.  If FERC goes all in on widely-dispersed centralized generation and long-distance transmission, as these greedy corporations suggest, they are slamming the door on community-based, centralized generation forever.  A handful of corporations will get very, very rich, but Metro City will suffer economically from loss of energy jobs, increased electric bills and loss of reliability. 

Never fear though... because when Mr. Metro City's bill starts going up to pay for all this remote electricity, putting solar panels on his own roof is going to start looking mighty appealing.  The higher his bill goes, the more economic the cost of generating his own electricity becomes.  Eventually, he'll pull the plug and stop buying remote electricity in favor of generating his own.  When he does this, the costs of the remote electricity that he was paying get spread to his neighbors, which increases their costs even more.  And then they look at Mr. Metro City's rooftop generator and do the figuring for one of their own.  When that happens, their costs of remote electricity get shifted to their own neighbors in Metro City West.  And so on, and so on... until a majority of users have separated themselves from the grid and the costs of remote electricity.  At that time, the remote generators and long-distance transmission lines go broke because they're no one left to pay for them.

Just say "no" to changing FERC's Order No. 2003 to give renewable generators a free ride to Metro City.  Stop the GREEN GREED!  It hurts electric consumers!

A Missouri landowner recently commented that Grain Belt Express is starting to remind him of those folks who call to extend his car warranty.  It's all huckster, all the time.  Everyone is familiar with the infomercial huckster... he's not only selling a GREAT product, he's offering you bonus free gifts with your purchase.

Perhaps someone at GBE spent too much time watching infomercials over the holidays... or got too into the Native American urban legends over Thanksgiving break...

Who hasn't heard the legend that Native Americans sold Manhattan to the Dutch for $24 worth of glass beads?

A Dutch West India Company representative sent a missive home in 1626:

Ahh, those gullible "savages."  Tricked out of their land by shiny objects!

And now GBE is offering MORE for those eager savages... err... landowners who sign a voluntary easement to allow construction of GBE on their land!

That's right!  In addition to 20% of GBE's valuation of your easement property, you will also receive a pair of work gloves and a hat that you probably won't want to wear out in public as their amazing "Thank You" gift! 

Not available in stores!  Call now!  Operators are standing by!

Seriously?  Invenergy thinks that landowners who have resisted all their efforts to negotiate the sale of an easement will be swayed to do so now by a pair of gloves and a hat that's likely to spawn numerous arguments with friends and neighbors when worn?

Perhaps they need to hire someone for a few late nite infomercials?  Might I suggest this guy?