“We cannot put investors and our company at risk.”

“Is it frustrating that we’re shutting down tens of thousands of megawatts of generation in our country that’s got life left in it because of the way this market is working?” Jones said. “That is very frustrating to me.”

However, most the attendees at the Bell Schoolhouse Fire Station meeting opposed the project. Dennis Daniels, who organized the meeting, said he has already been a victim of eminent domain once and does not want to go through the process again.
 
"Honestly I don't have any questions for (representatives)," he said. "I just don't want them to come through my property."
 
He's concerned that the power line will decrease property values, restrict further development on his land and be an eyesore.
 
"It bothers me most that it's a private, for-profit company," he said. "They're going to use eminent domain to take our property rights away to give to a company in San Francisco to make millions of dollars off of each year."

In a public meeting at the Bell Schoolhouse Fire Station just outside Starkville Thursday, Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley urged residents to reach out to representatives from Southern Cross Transmission if they have questions about the company's proposed wind energy transmission line.
 
"Let it not be said of you that you didn't call on these people and that you didn't file an objection," Presley said at the meeting.

While eminent domain is not out of the question, Presley said he believes the company will do everything in its power to avoid having to use it. Southern Cross representatives have told him they have put in similar lines in other parts of the country without resorting to eminent domain.

Presley said his office received a plethora of letters, emails and phone calls from property owners who received letters. In a meeting with company representatives, Presley said someone from the company has to meet with property owners one-on-one at the time and place of the landowner's choosing.
 
In an interview with The Dispatch Thursday, Presley said a Southern Cross representative had already begun meeting with landowners individually. Presley also had the company designate a point of contact for landowners to call. Since then, his office has received fewer calls from concerned citizens.
 
In June, Southern Cross Transmission sent letters to landowners whose property is within 500 feet of one of the proposed routes and promised to hold meetings and answer questions from landowners. The company then hosted an open house for property owners, but many left that meeting with more questions than answers, Presley said.
 
Legally, Southern Cross Transmission doesn't have to communicate with the public at all until it has decided on a route and filed a proposal with the Public Service Commission. But Presley wants to ensure that the company shows landowners the dignity and respect they deserve.

FERC has previously found that the interconnection of the Southern Cross Project to the ERCOT transmission system is in the public interest and that the Project will create substantial benefits both for the ERCOT and the Southeast regions.

Southern Cross Transmission plans to settle on a route and file its proposal with the commission this fall. Once that happens, Presley said, citizens have 20 days to file an objection, which gives them legal rights in the case.

He requested landowners write down whatever questions they have, take those questions directly to the company and wait until they had met with Southern Cross representatives before deciding whether to oppose the project.

Presley has also said he will not approve the project unless the company can prove it has some benefit to Mississippi.
 
"I'm as much for clean air and clean energy as the next guy, but it's got to be about more than renewable energy," he said. "For us, that's a plus, but there has to be other things."

"At the end of the day, the ability to connect into wind energy, which does not cost anything as far as burning coal, burning natural gas, (is) obviously an energy source that could have a benefit to the state," Presley said.
 
"That's the benefit," he added. "But also obviously if this electricity is low cost, I'm not going to be supporting trucking it through Mississippi to pump it to Atlanta, Georgia, and our people have cheap electricity ran over the top of their property and not being able to take advantage of it."

Is the project just an excuse to expand the reach of coal-fired power plants rather than supporting a clean energy project?

Existing coal fleet utilization currently ~ 72% -74%

Can increase to ~ 85% with adequate load & transmission

Most underutilized coal capacity in Middle U.S.

Current U.S. coal capacity ~ 310 GW, furnishes ~ 2 trillion kWh annually, U.S. consumes ~ 1.1B tons of coal

If new transmission increases existing coal fleet utilization 10%, then:
--Coal could provide additional 200B kWh
--Coal demand would increase by 100M tons
--Even assuming no new coal plants are built
--However, new transmission could facilitate new coal plants

“Restricting new transmission to green electrons is as bad as restricting a new highway to only electric vehicles.”

...the DOE is among the most prominent defendants requiring payment from the Judgment Fund, which pays for claims against the government. The department paid out more in legal claims than any other agency last year and the year before, according to the fund's records — more than $5 billion over the last decade.

And according to the department itself, the bloodletting as far from over. The DOE has failed to make good on some of its most important contractual obligations for years, and its private partners have been collecting billions in damages.

The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 requires that the DOE dispose of nuclear waste being produced at civilian energy plants around the country, which in turn pay fees for a long-term storage facility. The department's contracts with dozens of energy companies said it would start disposing of the waste in 1998.

The companies held up their end, feeding about $750 million into the Nuclear Waste Fund each year. But the department did not manage to set up any facility to receive the waste, forcing energy companies to store it themselves on-site.

The hang-up has been in finding a location for the centralized storage facility. For decades, Yucca Mountain in Nevada was the only location that could legally be considered, despite fierce opposition from state and local groups. The Obama administration eventually abandoned the site as "unworkable" in 2011.

How will a grid that provides a two-way street to carry and store more renewable energy help resolve this situation? DOE's Hannegan responds with a sports analogy. On a mesh-like grid, the problem, whether it is a computer hacker, a big forest fire or a battery failure, is a threat that can be quickly isolated, allowing the rest of the surrounding grid to operate normally using better controls and quickly dispatched stored electricity.

Lawlor says this "isn't about eminent domain," which is one of the worries of many who live along the proposed route.  

"We will sit down with every single landowner and negotiate with them on the unique nature of their property. In fact we've been doing that for a couple years now."

What happens if a landowner doesn’t want to negotiate with Grain Belt Express?

The Company is allowing sufficient time for negotiations with each individual landowner along the route. Grain Belt Express is committed to conducting easement negotiations in a manner that respects the private property rights of landowners and achieves a voluntary easement acquisition. The Company is also committed to working with landowners to minimize the impacts of the Project upon their property. In order to ensure that infrastructure projects in the public interest can be completed, the entities building them need the right to condemn certain easements, particularly in cases of parcels that have title issues, parcels with missing or unlocatable landowners or heirs, or parcels where landowners refuse all reasonable attempts at contact or negotiation. Grain Belt Express views the use of eminent domain as a last resort that is appropriate only after exhausting all reasonable attempts at voluntary easement acquisition and title curative work. In all cases, landowners are entitled to due process and payment of fair market value for any easement acquired, and will retain ownership of their land.

...sit down with every single landowner and negotiate with them on the unique nature of their property.

$1,167 per MW/month, escalating at 2 percent (2%) annually beginning as of the  Commencement Date for the first 100 MW tranche.

$1,667 per MW/month, escalating at 2 percent (2%) annually beginning as of the Commencement Date for the second 100 MW tranche.

$2,500 per MW /month.  For the first two years, after which time the contract may be extended for a period up to 26 years.

the Parties shall cooperate with
each other to obtain all Governmental Approvals that are required for Transmission Provider to construct and operate the Project and put this Agreement fully into effect, including making any filing in support of another Party's application for any such approval as requested by the Party
seeking such approval. From and after the Execution Date, the Parties shall not take any action, or seek any relief, before any other Governmental Authority that is inconsistent with the terms and conditions of this Agreement.

that PE’s initial acknowledgment of the substandard meter reading history was an appropriate and an accurate reply to the Commission's correspondence. Its later reversal on the issue of accepting some responsibility for the substandard performance is troubling and counterproductive for the proper resolution of these issues.

It is not a legitimate excuse to blame the weather (which PE can’t control) or the staffing issues it faced (which it can control), as neither of these factors is unique to PE as an electrical utility, nor are they unusual or unknown factors.

PE is obligated to make its decisions as to how to manage and staff its Meter Reading Division in a manner and to a level of industry standards, and I find that PE failed to do so during the time period under review.

I find that the facts demonstrate that the meter reading rate of Potomac fell below an acceptable level of reading for the years 2011-2012, and that was in violation of its tariff and of good engineering practices as required of a utility. I conclude that the failings were due to an inadequate level of staffing and of a failure to have adequate contingency plans in place when PE faced unusual weather events.