Time is drawing short for the public (that's you!) to let the U.S. Department of Energy know what it should study in its upcoming Environmental Impact Statement for the Grain Belt Express.

After a decade of not being able to find customers for its merchant transmission project, Grain Belt Express has turned to the federal government to provide a loan guarantee for up to 80% of the cost of its transmission line project across Kansas, Missouri and Illinois.  A loan guarantee is just like co-signing on someone else's lease or car loan... you are responsible for payment if the primary borrower defaults.  So whether the federal government actually loans GBE the money, or simply co-signs on a bank loan, the U.S. taxpayers are going to be holding all the risk that GBE won't be able to find enough customers to repay the money it cost to build the project.  It's no risk and all reward for GBE owner Invenergy, meanwhile the project is poised to cause enormous environmental and social destruction across three states.

In this phase, known as "Scoping", the public should let DOE know what it should study and why.  If you think there is an impact GBE will cause, let them know.  This is your only opportunity to help mold the study parameters.  You can't decide later that GBE will destroy an historic site on its route and demand it be studied.  The next phase will be a draft study where you may comment on the conclusions reached on the study parameters.  At that point it's not about what should be studied, but how it was studied.

Here's where you should submit your comments.  There are numerous ways to do so, from emailing a copy of written comments, to calling up and leaving a verbal comment.

Yesterday, I submitted my written comments.  I hope you will send in yours before the deadline on Feb. 28.

There's still time to let your government know that even $760M of your hard earned dollars cannot buy a speedy path for new transmission rights of way across your property.  You can submit your comments by following the instructions here.

The baboons in Congress heard a lobbyist whisper that throwing money at a problem could solve it, and that the reason why transmission wasn't getting built is because state regulatory processes were slowing things down.  The lobbyists also told their pet apes that landowners affected by new transmission who form opposition that slows down and cancels transmission proposals can be bought off with "economic development" projects that compensate someone else without any skin in the game.  Of course, the primates didn't bother to actually consult with state regulators or transmission opponents to see if any of this was remotely true.  Congress simply appropriated a stunning $760M to throw at this problem in the inaptly named "Inflation Reduction Act."  Does spending more money on useless ideas actually reduce inflation?  Hasn't happened yet.

Now the U.S. Department of Energy wants to know our thoughts on how they should give away all this money as "grants" to "siting authorities" to make transmission permitting happen faster and easier.

I told them what I think.

Let me sum it up for you: 

What an incredible waste of our money!

Ahh... a new generation of ridiculous quotes from Michael Skelly.  I'm not sure what planet these landowners live on, but it's not planet Earth.  No landowner facing the loss of his property for one of Skelly's brain fart projects has ever expressed to me that they were worried about "that grid."  You don't think that he's making it up, do you?

In a recent article in industry trade publication RTO Insider, Skelly shares his fabulistic insights as he embarks on a new crusade to build a bunch of transmission that we don't want or need.... even though he didn't "win the World Cup of transmission" the last time he tried to do this.

Looks like the Cup is just as far out of reach as it ever was.  Last week, the Public Utility Commission of Texas issued a preliminary order that it did not have the authority to issue a partial certificate for Skelly's new Pecos West transmission idea.  Skelly had asked PUCT to issue a finding "that the public convenience and necessity requires, or will require, the proposed interconnection and that the proposed interconnection is in the public interest."  PUCT Commissioner Jimmy Glotfelty (yes, THAT Jimmy Glotfelty) said he was really sorry he couldn't approve it.  I'm sure he was.  He may have just out-Skellied Skelly with that statement.

Remember when Clean Line asked Iowa and Illinois for similar findings at the beginning of the Rock Island Clean Line debacle?  He was also turned down there.  Turns out no state regulator may be interested in issuing a "Get your project preapproved" card.  But that never stops Skelly from dreaming big unicorn dreams and tilting at windmills.

He's only just begun.

...and other fairy tales from Invenergy's clueless Vice President of Transmission.  Why does he talk so much?

I watched this a couple weeks ago.

It's a virtual "public meeting" on the Grain Belt Express Environmental Impact Statement required by the U.S. Department of Energy in order to evaluate Invenergy's application for a taxpayer loan to build its project that doesn't have enough customers to be economic.

Since it's inception, Grain Belt Express has been proposed as a merchant transmission project.  That means that it has not been approved or ordered by regional grid planners who allocate the costs of their projects among captive ratepayers that use the project.  A merchant project is an extraneous transmission proposal for which there is no actual demand or need but that its owners want to risk their own cash to build it in the hope that it will attract voluntary customers who find it useful.

There are two distinct transmission rate schemes:

There is no third rate scheme, just those two.  Anything else is a privately owned and operated line that is not offered for public use and its owners pay for the project themselves.  No public use, no public utility, no eminent domain, no rate, remember that.

So what happened when Brad from Invenergy got a question asking to explain merchant transmission and whether or not Grain Belt Express was a merchant project at 1:09:30 of the above video? 

What?  Grain Belt Express no longer considers itself a merchant transmission project?  Grain Belt has been "finalized" as a merchant for years, and its state approvals are premised upon it being a merchant project offered for public use at Negotiated Rates.  As a matter of fact, FERC approved Negotiated Rate Authority for Grain Belt way back in 2014.  But now, all of a sudden, its rate is no longer certain.  So what are the other options?

Regionally approved and cost allocated?  This is never going to happen.  The regional transmission organization carefully plans the system it needs and then approves and orders it to be built.  It doesn't go around searching for merchant transmission projects to allocate to ratepayers, especially ones that cost over $7B.

The only other option is a privately-owned line that is not offered to the public and does not charge a rate.  End of story.

Brad, who must have fallen asleep in rate class, says there are different ways to generate revenues for a transmission project.  One is a merchant project.  Another is where other entities could buy a "non-divided interest" (Brad means undivided interest) in the project and own a dedicated portion of it.  However, the second method does not generate revenue through a rate.  It has no regulated rate.  It's just an ownership sale.  In order to recognize revenue from a third party, that owner would have to have a rate.  What's the difference between GBE owned by Invenergy and not having a rate and GBE owned by other parties and not having a rate?  Absolutely nothing!  There is no revenue.  And without revenue, GBE would be unable to repay the taxpayer loan from the DOE. 

Is DOE really this stupid about electric rates that they are buying this nonsense? 

But let's move on... to the long and winding story of how an electron generated in SW Kansas ends up back in Kansas.  Around minute 52:00 of the video, Brad gets a question about whether the energy on GBE will also be delivered to customers in Kansas.  The simple answer here is "no", but Brad so enjoys the sound of his own voice (and those annoying sucking sounds he uses to punctuate his sentences) that a simple "no" won't do.  Brad goes on for a full 5 minutes trying to help those electrons generated in SW Kansas get back to Kansas.

He says GBE brings power to substations and "markets" in Missouri owned by MISO and AECI, who are "served" by it.  Sorry, Brad, but as we know the only power injected into the grid in Missouri would have to be contracted with a buyer and a seller.  If there is no contract to purchase it, then it goes nowhere. What's more, GBE is a transmission line, not an electric generator.   Brad says that since all alternating current substations are connected to the grid, they all get GBE power because it's like dumping a 2500 MW bucket of electricity into the grid swimming pool.  But that's not how GBE works... it is only "dumped" in the amount it is purchased.  GBE is not dumping buckets of free electricity into the electric grid.  It's all being sold to a particular customer, or in the case of GBE, one customer for less than 5% of its transfer capacity.  Brad thinks that after GBE dumps free electricity into the MISO swimming pool, utilities in Kansas are draining the pool because it's all connected and power automatically goes where its needed.  So, Brad, the electric grid is just one big free pool of electricity?  We don't pay for what we use?  Brad claims "they" say they are seeing a need for the power in these areas.  What areas?  Kansas?  If Kansas sees a need for this power, then it would use it when it's generated in Kansas, not ship it to Missouri and hope some energetic little atoms swim home.  It would make no sense for a Kansas utility to buy power from GBE because the only access point is in eastern Missouri.  As a direct current line from SW Kansas to Eastern Missouri, there are no entrances or exits from Grain Belt Express until it gets to the converter station in Missouri.

Brad must have been hysterical near the end because he suggested that if any utilities in Kansas are a member of MJMEUC (it stands for Missouri Joint Municipal Electric Utility Commission, Brad, but has recently been re-named the easier to remember Missouri Electric Commission, or MEC) that they would receive Kansas power from Grain Belt Express through Invenergy's contract with MEC.  Brad acted like he understood that the "M" in the acronym stood for Missouri.  Missouri, Brad, Missouri!  It's membership is MISSOURI municipalities, not Kansans.

Thankfully, Brad ran down after 5 minutes of blithering idiot babbling and sucking.  But then he asked Invenergy's engineer Aaron White if he could add to that.  Aaron looked quite amused.  He should have passed.  But no, he proceeds to tell actual lies.  Aaron said that GBE could reverse flow and deliver power from Illinois and points east to Missouri and SW Kansas during an emergency.  Except it can't.  Well, technically it could, but it really can't because GBE has no permission to withdraw energy from Illinois or Missouri.  GBE can't just reverse the suction on its pool hose and black out Illinois or Missouri on a whim.  Only the grid operator could do that, and guess what?  GBE has not applied to withdraw power in Missouri.  Not sure about Illinois, but I seriously doubt it.  Also, let's consider that GBE has contracted customers or other owners who have bought a certain amount of capacity on the line.  It is up to the owners to use or sell that capacity when they aren't using it.  If a city in Illinois signs an agreement to purchase power from a wind farm in Ford County Kansas and that power is delivered on a dedicated portion of GBE, what would happen to that city in Illinois if GBE suddenly changed direction and started sucking electricity out of that city?  GBE won't control something it does not own.  Aaron is just a straight up liar.  GBE won't reverse direction unless it has withdrawal rights and the owners of its capacity resell it to someone else who wants to use it to ship power to Kansas.  Chances of that happening are slim to none.

I'm wondering with all this misinformation being belched out at "public meetings", what has the DOE Loans Program Office been told in private?  Are they being fed these lies, too?  Do they believe them?  LPO better sort this stuff out before loaning these liars my tax money.

No, not *that* closet.  The closet where he's been hiding while pretending he's not influencing what passes for U.S. energy policy using his enormous wealth and connections.  We've all seen Mr. Know-It-All pretending to be expert on every facet of American life and dictating how we all live over the years.  Bill Gates is a techno-geek, not a doctor, economist, nuclear scientist or electrical engineer.  He should stay in his lane, but he never does.

You may be amazed to know that while still in high school, Gates wrote software for the entity that controls the power grid in the Northwest, therefore that makes him an expert on transmission planning.  I kid you not.  I wonder if the people of the Northwest knew some kid still in high school was in charge of their electricity like that?  My fabulist fee-fees are tingling.

At any rate, Gates says that renewables need to be built in rural areas and connected to the cities with new transmission.  Remember that... renewables only happen in rural areas.  Gates says that the reason we haven't tripled the number of high voltage power lines in this country is because we don't properly plan, pay for or permit transmission and he knows how to fix that, just like he's fixed all society's other problems over the past 30 years or so.  Blah, blah, blah, it's a virtual firestorm of blisteringly hot air from the world's biggest expert on everything and nothing all at the same time.  What Gates says isn't important.

However, when I peeled the Bill Gates onion two years ago, some thought is was a crazy conspiracy theory.  Of course it was all true.  I did the research myself.  Bill Gates seems to have been sitting in the cat bird seat directing U.S. energy policy for the past 2 years.  All his crackpot ideas are manifesting, with idiotic busy work on Transmission Siting and Economic Development Grants, and an Environmental Justice and Equity in Infrastructure Permitting Roundtable.  Our federal government is so very busy trying to gin up a smokescreen of feel good so that landowners facing eminent domain for a "clean energy" project will just inhale deeply and go quietly.  Are they insane?

Landowners will still object to having their property involuntarily taken from them.  That's the part that even Bill Gates' money can't solve.

And should we even let Bill Gates and his globalist pals anywhere near our energy system?  Think about it.

Have you been getting involved in the U.S. Department of Energy's Loan Program Office Environmental Impact Study of the Grain Belt Express?  Perhaps you'd like to get to know the guy in charge of denying or approving this loan.

The biased media wants you to meet:

The man in charge of how the US spends $400bn to shift away from fossil fuels

Go ahead.  Click the link.  He's laser-focused on working with affected communities.

But did you see him at any of the meet and greet poster board shows across the Midwest this week?  Probably not.  He may not fit in.

Those Stan Smiths are not going to be pristine very long down on the farm.  Heaven forbid he gets a little reality on his fancy shoes!!  He can only keep his shoes clean if he sticks to his own turf. 

I wonder what would be more disastrous?  Global heating or cow poop on the pristine Stan Smiths?

It really doesn't seem to matter.  Your tax dollars are being awarded to companies like Ultium Cells, that has a plant in China, or a Nevada lithium mine that is set to destroy a rare endangered flower.

The LPO's enthusiasm for Grain Belt Express seems to be based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how transmission lines are paid for.  A DOE representative said she could not discuss how ratepayers would pay for the line because that part of the LPO's evaluation is done by the financial folks.  But what do they know about electric rates?  I'm going to hazard a guess that it's not much if they are even considering making a "loan" to Grain Belt Express, a project without a clear rate process to realize the revenue it would need to pay back a taxpayer loan.

Grain Belt is NOT a regionally planned, cost allocated transmission project.  It cannot and may not recover its costs from captive ratepayers because it was not planned or ordered by regional grid planners.  Instead, Grain Belt can only recover revenue through Negotiated Rate Authority granted by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.  This authority, granted to former owner Clean Line in 2014, allows the company to fairly negotiate with voluntary customers in a fair and open competitive negotiation process.  After selling its service to voluntary customers, Grain Belt must make a compliance filing with FERC and FERC must accept it.   Only then may Grain Belt Express realize any revenue to pay back a loan.  So far, Grain Belt has only announced a contract with just one customer for less than 5 percent of its expected capacity.  That's not going to pay back any loan.  What's more, Grain Belt Express representatives recently shared that the company has not yet decided if it would be a merchant transmission project that collects revenue through Negotiated Rates.  Therefore, there is NO RATE set through which Grain Belt Express can realize revenue.  Electric rates are regulated by state utility commissions at the retail end, and by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission at the wholesale end.  The U.S. Department of Energy has no authority to set or regulate electric rates at all.  It can just give away your tax dollars to a company without the means to repay the loan.

Isn't that how Solyndra happened?

Well, here ya go, Representative Rodgers.  The next Solyndra.  Be careful where you step!

The DC Swamp has gotten bigger than ever.  There are literally billions of dollars in taxpayer funds being tossed around like Monopoly money.  If you're part of the "in" crowd it's time to belly up to the bar and fill your pockets.

Case in point... our old pal Michael Skelly, who has created a new transmission company after he drove Clean Line Energy Partners into the ground.  The new company is called Grid United and has created a suite of five new above ground transmission projects.  Deja vu, anyone?  Now, I'm not sure what kind of an idiot would give this man money to play a new round of "transmission developer" but I think it's a very special kind.  Maybe even a fawning government bureaucrat with your money in his hands?

Michael Skelly seems to have learned absolutely NOTHING from the Clean Line failure, except to avoid the Midwest.  Unfortunately for him, Mayberry is everywhere.  His new "project" brain farts don't stand any higher chance of success than the last ones did.  Nobody wants Skelly's electric obstructions on their land and he's probably in line for a large Deja Vu Daiquiri himself.

But here's something a bit different this time around.  Skelly was rewarded for his Clean Line failure with a choice appointment to a special government committee.  The Secretary of Energy Advisory Board.

The Secretary of Energy, of course, is the political figurehead at the top of the U.S. Department of Energy.  And who is giving out all those billions in "infrastructure" and "clean energy" funds provided by taxpayers?  The U.S. DOE.  And what has Michael Skelly and his committee advised the Secretary to do lately?

And what is Grid United trying to build?  Interregional interconnections, such as North Plains Connector, "...an approximately 385-mile, up to 600 kilovolt high voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission line connecting the Eastern and Western Interconnections in Montana and North Dakota."  Or perhaps Pecos West, "...an approximately 280-mile, 525 kilovolt HVDC intertie line stretching from Bakersfield in Pecos County to El Paso, providing a valuable link between ERCOT and the Western Interconnection."   Etc., etc., etc.

Skelly seems rather eager to cash in.

So, to sum it up, Skelly sits on a federal committee that just recommended DOE prioritize giving money to just the kinds of transmission projects Skelly's new company is building.

You'd think there should be laws against that kind of corruption.