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!