The Kansas Industrial Consumers Group is concerned about new electric transmission for the purpose of exporting electric power generated in Kansas to other states. And rightly so... why should Kansans pay the freight so that other states that don't want to build their own renewable energy generators can assuage their climate guilt by pretending to use renewable energy?
Today's NIMBY is the climate guilt ridden urban warrior who wants to use renewable energy, but doesn't want the infrastructure that produces it in his own back yard. All reward, no sacrifice. They champion building industrial scale wind and solar generators in someone else's back yard and they say silly things like "where the wind blows harder or the sun shines brighter." What they really mean is that they think that rural areas should junk up their communities with industrial scale energy generators and new transmission lines. They pretend all this new "infrastructure" provides some benefit to the rural area, like payments to "struggling" farmers and new taxes to "struggling" local governments. The struggle is real... but it a struggle to maintain their way of life without being turned into a sacrifice for urban NIMBYs.
The funny part is that the Kansas Industrial Consumers Group is fanning the flames of land use conflicts.
Today's NIMBY is the climate guilt ridden urban warrior who wants to use renewable energy, but doesn't want the infrastructure that produces it in his own back yard. All reward, no sacrifice. They champion building industrial scale wind and solar generators in someone else's back yard and they say silly things like "where the wind blows harder or the sun shines brighter." What they really mean is that they think that rural areas should junk up their communities with industrial scale energy generators and new transmission lines. They pretend all this new "infrastructure" provides some benefit to the rural area, like payments to "struggling" farmers and new taxes to "struggling" local governments. The struggle is real... but it a struggle to maintain their way of life without being turned into a sacrifice for urban NIMBYs.
The funny part is that the Kansas Industrial Consumers Group is fanning the flames of land use conflicts.
Imagine this: A 150-foot (half a football field wide) right of way that extends continuously for 89 miles through five counties in Kansas, for a 345-kV electric transmission line. The physical structure — poles and wire — for a 345 kV transmission line, is much larger than most Kansans have ever seen.
The transmission line construction and operation would affect the private property of many homeowners, but the primary physical impact of this transmission project would be on hundreds of farms and ranches in Allen, Anderson, Bourbon, Coffey and Crawford counties Kansas.
NextEra, however, must acquire 89 miles of right of way in Kansas to construct and operate the transmission line. This is likely impossible without a KCC order to permit NextEra the power to condemn the private property of those landowners who do not want a large transmission line on their property.
The private property rights of Kansans may be condemned for the benefit of consumers in other states. This is a big step.
Can't argue with that logic, but I have to ask... where were these guys when the KCC was considering the Grain Belt Express merchant transmission line? The answer is that they were nowhere because a merchant transmission line must contract with voluntary customers. There's no way for GBE to pass its costs onto involuntary Kansas customers. If it's truly about burden on Kansans, why were the land use arguments not just as valid when GBE was proposed. After all, the project was not even found needed by a regional transmission organization. There was no need, it was purely an profit-seeking proposal for its owner, who thought if it built a transmission line for export across Kansas that voluntary customers in other states would want to use it to import electricity from western Kansas.
And where were these guys a couple years ago when Kansas Governor Laura Kelly "partnered" with GBE because it was going to create thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in "economic development" in Kansas by building a giant one-way highway across the state to export electricity? Again, I don't remember them caring one way or the other.
And where have these folks been during KCC Commissioner Andrew French's interaction with federal energy regulators during its state-federal task force on transmission? Have they been listening to French drone on at FERC about how Kansas "needs" new transmission to export electricity? Sherlock Holmes told me that French was vice president of the consumers group before he was appointed to the KCC.
Is this some sort of public plea for French to remember where he came from? He seems to have done a 180 since being appointed to the KCC. There's definitely something in the water there... or maybe it's the vanilla pannacotta served up by utilities that makes commissioners lose all common sense? The KCC has never taken the side of Kansans against out of state energy interests with fat wallets. Why does the Kansas Industrial Consumers Group think they're going to start now?
And where were these guys a couple years ago when Kansas Governor Laura Kelly "partnered" with GBE because it was going to create thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in "economic development" in Kansas by building a giant one-way highway across the state to export electricity? Again, I don't remember them caring one way or the other.
And where have these folks been during KCC Commissioner Andrew French's interaction with federal energy regulators during its state-federal task force on transmission? Have they been listening to French drone on at FERC about how Kansas "needs" new transmission to export electricity? Sherlock Holmes told me that French was vice president of the consumers group before he was appointed to the KCC.
Is this some sort of public plea for French to remember where he came from? He seems to have done a 180 since being appointed to the KCC. There's definitely something in the water there... or maybe it's the vanilla pannacotta served up by utilities that makes commissioners lose all common sense? The KCC has never taken the side of Kansans against out of state energy interests with fat wallets. Why does the Kansas Industrial Consumers Group think they're going to start now?
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