Well, hey there!  Renewable energy wonks have the same "saying" as transmission opponents.  It's about time we all got on the same page!

At a FERC Techincal Conference regarding interconnection procedures last week, Dean Gosselin, NextEra Energy’s vice president of business management, said:

Right.  Projects that struggle for years to gain approval, financing, and customers aren't good projects that deserve to come to fruition.

So what in the world is Clean Line doing still trying to shove its projects through?  This company has been "developing" its projects since 2009.  That's 7 long years, and they're still no closer to fruition.  Even the Federal government won't undertake massive eminent domain condemnations for a project that has no customers, and for which no voluntary easements have been signed.

Time kills all projects, even yours, Clean Line.  You're like that slimy green stuff in the back of the vegetable drawer of project ideas -- so past its prime that it lacks physical substance and smells horrendous.  Clean Line is way past its expiration date.

In the Captain Obvious department, FERC told the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that the lawsuit filed against it by Delaware Riverkeeper Network fails and should be dismissed with prejudice.  It fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, and it lacks subject matter jurisdiction.  That's probably FERCenese* for "What kind of an uneducated toad filed this?"  FERC also says

FERC explains (without even some heavy sigh footnotes) that it must operate within an annual budget appropriated by Congress with the stipulation that FERC collect fees and charges from the industry it regulates to reimburse the U.S. Treasury for its allocation.  Congress approves FERC's budget, FERC charges fees based on that budget.  Approving gas pipelines does not increase FERC's budget, nor the fees it collects.  As FERC puts it, Riverkeeper's claim "defies logic and common sense."

D'oh!

Is Riverkeeper really that dense that they think payment of FERC fees guarantees approval of gas pipelines?  Or that adding new pipelines increases FERC's budget and increases their intake of pie?  Or is Riverkeeper simply pretending to be ridiculously ignorant in order to create a circus for its public (who it must believe to be ridiculously ignorant in order to fall for it)?  Is Riverkeeper just wasting everyone's time in an attempt to keep this hot potato in courts as long as possible?  If Riverkeeper's intent isn't to waste FERC's time, the Court's time, and generate plenty of skewed media stories, then it must have the dumbest counsel ever.  The dumbest.

Which is it, Riverkeeper?

To justify thousands of miles of new transmission "for renewables," NIMBYs often claim it is "for the greater good."  The NIMBYs who champion the use of eminent domain for renewable energy only support it because it is "Not In My Backyard."  They have all sorts of specious arguments to support their position, such as:

None of these arguments is effective to convince landowners to sacrifice themselves and grant easements for the "greater good" of others in far off places.

Our country was electrified through the use of eminent domain.  It was the only way to provide electric service to all who wanted it.  Now everyone has electricity, and those who want new service choose whether to pay the cost of extending electric lines to serve their property, or building their own generation onsite.  That is a simple economic argument -- would the cost of extending centralized generation to the property be more or less than building and maintaining distributed generation to serve the property.  In many parts of the world, distributed generation is the option that makes sense.

But utility eminent domain is no longer about providing individuals with reliable basic service.  It's now oftentimes used to provide lower cost electric service, or to provide a different "renewable" kind of generation required by public policies.  This is where utility eminent domain starts sliding down the slippery slope of "public use."  Can "the public" necessity for more economic or environmentally responsible electricity trump the right of the individual to own and enjoy property?  Where does the responsibility of "the public" to be responsible for their own footprint enter into the equation?

If the current electric supply for "the public" in one location is more expensive than electric supply for "the public" in another location, does that give utilities the right to take private property in order to levelize electric prices between localities?  In such a scheme, consumers enjoying cheaper electricity must sacrifice by paying more for their electricity in order that other consumers in a different region can enjoy cheaper prices.  And landowners in between these two regions must sacrifice their personal property to grant easements for new transmission lines to effect this economic benefit for one group of consumers.

The same argument can be made about transmission lines "for renewables" (as if transmission lines could segregate "clean" from "dirty" energy - it's all the same when it's transmitted).  Consumers who live in regions where renewables are cheap and plentiful enjoy lower electric prices.  When those renewables are exported to other regions where renewables have failed to properly and economically develop (notice I did not say regions where there are no renewables, because such places simply don't exist), it raises prices for consumers who previously enjoyed low prices because supply exceeded demand.  And it requires them to make a sacrifice so that consumers in other regions can enjoy the low-priced renewables they failed to develop themselves.

We get here because of electricity markets.  Electric markets are run by organizations who also control electric transmission.  Electric transmission is the only tool these organizations have to control their artificial electric markets by moving electricity around their own region, or to other regions.  Electric transmission organizations cannot order new generation to be built as a way to control their markets, lower prices, or support environmental "public policies."  Eminent domain cannot be used to force new generation, but it can be used to force new transmission.  This mismatch between the power of a "market" to force transmission, but not generation, makes no sense.

If a particular region needs renewable generation, or lower cost electricity, an unfettered market would force it to be built.  Instead, the current electric "market" forces transmission before market forces can be allowed to do their work to encourage new generation.  This isn't a true "market," it's top down force that causes unnecessary sacrifice on the part of individuals who will receive no benefit in order to provide for the needs of others.  If regions that have failed to develop their own renewable resources must pay more to develop them now, then that's the cost of environmentally-friendly consumption.  If regions with more expensive power need cheaper prices, then they should build cheaper generators, or change policies that suppress generation and drive up its cost.  Example:  The east coast cities have traditionally relied on coal-fired generators in the Ohio Valley to supply them with cheap electricity because their own environmental restrictions or costs imposed on coal-fired generators prevented them from generating economic coal-fired electricity in their own neighborhood.  The Ohio Valley destroyed its people and environment in order to ship cheap electricity east to serve the cities.  Now the cities don't want any more coal-fired power, but they have been trained to be helpless leeches, incapable of providing for their own electric needs.  Many of these NIMBYs continue to think that other regions enjoy sacrificing themselves for city needs.  They somehow think other regions enjoy some economic benefit from serving them.  One only need look at West Virginia as an example that any economic benefit from the sacrifice didn't flow to the people -- it went into the pockets of the out-of-state companies who exploited the state's natural resources for the last 100 years.

Climate change has happened gradually over hundreds of years of our industrial expansion.  It cannot be changed overnight.  The big rush to switch to renewables won't happen quickly.  And it certainly shouldn't be used as a basis to require sacrifice of personal property rights to allow new renewable energy projects.  Renewables will develop where they are welcomed by people who want to pay to use them.  Arguing that development of more expensive local renewables isn't worthwhile effectively rejects climate change arguments entirely.

And, again, we have another mismatch between generation and transmission when it comes to renewables.  The siting of renewable energy generators is an entirely voluntary process -- no eminent domain can be used to obtain land for wind farms, for instance.  In that case, renewable generation developers have to operate in a voluntary real estate market to acquire land for their projects.  These landowners are compensated at a rate that entices their voluntary participation, oftentimes receiving royalties and other long-term financial compensation for the use of their land.  But voluntarily-sited renewable generators may require new transmission lines to tap into existing transmission systems, and request the use of eminent domain to get there.  On the one hand, landowners hosting generators are well-compensated because their participation is voluntary, but on the other hand, landowners hosting the transmission lines that make generation profits happen are involuntarily forced to take one-time "market value" payments and sacrifice their property.  Everyone participating in the production of getting renewable generation to market is not compensated equally.

And here's another incongruity... when eminent domain is used to acquire land for transmission lines planned by regional organizations and cost allocated to all ratepayers in a region, the ratepayers realize the benefit of the cheaper land acquisition accomplished by eminent domain through "cost of service" transmission rates.  However, new "merchant" transmission projects proposed are not supported by cost of service rates, but by market rates.  A merchant project is financed wholly by its investors, not ratepayers.  It depends on market prices for transmission service in order to set its rates through a voluntary negotiation process.  The users of its line negotiate a price for service.  The merchant transmission owner can collect whatever rate it can negotiate in this voluntary market.  In that case, any lower land acquisition values created by eminent domain flow directly to the investors.  Eminent domain does not affect the market for transmission service -- that market remains unaffected whether land acquisition for transmission rights of way is voluntary or coerced through eminent domain.  The merchant transmission ratepayers do not realize any financial benefit from the use of eminent domain for land acquisition.  A merchant transmission project is a market-based endeavor -- it's success depends entirely on market forces.  Therefore, why isn't a merchant transmission project's land acquisition also subject to the same market forces?  A market-based merchant project should be required to negotiate land acquisition prices with voluntary landowners in the same free market in which it negotiates prices for its transmission with voluntary users.

Those who casually spout off that new transmission is "for the greater good" and therefore deserving of landowner sacrifice through the acquisition of rights of way through eminent domain aren't aren't dealing with a full deck.  It's all so much self-interested hogwash.  Who determines when transmission is "for the greater good?"  Not the folks who stand to benefit from it.  The "greater good" includes everyone.  Equally.

​

Hurray, hurray, it's election day!

Maybe now the phone will stop ringing incessantly with recorded voices urging me to vote for the candidate with the most corporate money in their treasure chest.  And maybe now my mailbox won't be stuffed with repetitive political cards urging me to vote for the candidate with the most corporate money in their treasure chest.  Because, you know, corporate money rules the political world.

But there will be other things for certain people to vote on, even after election day.  Corporate shareholders still get to vote on proposals at upcoming company annual meetings.  In addition to company-sponsored proposals such as executive compensation or lowering the threshold for approval of "certain" proposals, shareholders can vote on their own proposals about how the company they own is run.

FirstEnergy shareholders will be voting on May 17.  Of course, the company recommends that its shareholders vote for all the company's proposals, and AGAINST all the proposals of its shareholders.  This pretty much never changes from year to year.  The only thing that changes is the proposals that shareholders make which are consistently voted down at annual meetings.

This year, shareholders have proposed that FirstEnergy prepare and issue a report disclosing the company's lobbying expenditures, particularly direct and indirect lobbying and grassroots lobbying communications.  Direct and indirect lobbying includes payments to tax-exempt organizations that write and endorse model legislation.  "Grassroots" lobbying communications include company advertising advising the general public how they should think about certain legislation, and how they should participate in their own governance.

The Nathan Cummings Foundation believes FirstEnergy's lobbying efforts constitute a risky and ineffective strategy.  It's not how much of the shareholders' money FirstEnergy pumps into its lobbying efforts (well, assuming FirstEnergy doesn't have any accounting "accidents" and charge the lobbying costs to ratepayers instead of shareholders) it's that they suspect FirstEnergy's lobbying efforts are hurting shareholders interest in the health of the company.  Now, why would FirstEnergy engage in lobbying that hurts its financial position?

FirstEnergy's management believes "that it has a responsibility to participate in the legislative, regulatory and political process. Sharing its views and educating officeholders, regulators, community and business leaders, and the public on key issues helps your Company promote effective government and the interests of key stakeholder groups including our shareholders, employees and the communities we serve. By engaging with elected officials, regulators, community and business leaders, and other decision makers, your Company strives to conduct its business as transparently as possible to serve customers effectively and help build public trust."

Participate?  It's not just about "sharing its views," it's about using money and political power to prevent voters from "sharing their views."  It's about hiding behind trade associations and totally made up groups, such as Utility Air Regulatory Group (UARG), in order to influence government processes.  It's about using its public voice to disseminate political propaganda to its customers.

But, never fear, these shareholder proposals are always voted down.  Shareholders never truly revolt and vote with their money by dumping the corporate stock of a company who continues to ignore their wishes.  Nobody is brave enough to have real convictions when it comes to their wallet.  

​Greed rules all in a voting process, whether at the voting booth or an annual shareholder meeting.

On Thursday, Maryland Public Service Commission Administrative Law Judge Dennis H. Sober fined Potomac Edison $25,000 for its 2011-2012 failure to read electric meters according to its tariff.

It's been a long time since Potomac Edison's outrageous billing failure caused its customers to receive astronomical bills resulting from the company's neglect of its duty to read meters in a timely fashion.  The West Virginia PSC investigation and subsequent hearing into the same problem resulted in a requirement that the company switch to monthly meter readings back in 2014.

The judge's Proposed Order in Maryland also requires Potomac Edison to increase its meter reading frequency to monthly in that state.

The judge found:

And

The Maryland PSC staff recommended a penalty of $300,000, based on PE's cost of missed meter readings.  Why should the company collect from ratepayers for services it never performed?  While this makes perfect sense to me (and probably to you as well), the judge found that "the basis for the formulation of the financial penalty Staff would impose is not valid and has no basis upon which to rely."  Therefore, the judge pulled a number out of nowhere to impose a much lower, arbitrary penalty of $25,000.  Even a $300,000 penalty is nothing more than a minor annoyance to a company with annual revenue in the neighborhood of $15B.  A penalty of $25,000 is an insult to ratepayers who were harmed by Potomac Edison's failure to abide by its tariff.  But, hey, it's more than the WV PSC fined the company for the same practices, which was a big fat goose egg.  Instead, the WV PSC ordered monthly meter reading at an additional cost to ratepayers of more than $7M annually.  It remains to be seen if Potomac Edison will file a new base rate case in Maryland in order to collect the additional costs it faces for increasing its meter reading to a monthly basis.  Potomac Edison currently enjoys an 11.9% return on equity in Maryland, a rate much higher than that allowed in neighboring states.  A new base rate filing will most likely result in a new, much lower ROE.  In fact, PE would probably lose money in such a deal as the lower ROE would cost them more than they could make collecting a higher cost for monthly meter reading.  But, never fear, Marylanders, FirstEnegy will probably do something like apply for a supplemental rate rider to cover the cost of additional meter reading without having to file a base rate case.  This ain't over until FirstEnergy takes even more money out of your pocket...

And speaking of... the judge's Proposed Order isn't final until June 7, and only then if no party files an appeal.  Do you think Potomac Edison will appeal the Proposed Order, since all its costs to do so come out of ratepayer pockets?

Justice sure is funny in a regulated environment, isn't it?

Well, that was completely unsurprising.  FERC said the Power Purchase Agreements requiring captive Ohio distribution company customers to purchase generation from AEP and FE merchant generators don't pass the sniff test.

Even though the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) approved the deals, FERC rules about affiliate transactions cannot be bypassed (or politically influenced).

FERC rescinded previously granted waivers to allow AEP & FE to engage in affiliate transactions without review.  The waivers were granted when the companies spun off their regulated generators into merchant companies because the generation companies no longer had captive customers.  In that case, any deals between regulated distribution affiliates and unregulated generation affiliates would have been subject to market forces.  If the deals were too expensive, then customers could bypass the charges and switch to another, cheaper, generator.  But AEP & FE made the mistake of placing the cost burden of these PPAs on captive distribution customers, and not free choice generation customers.  Because then the customers would choose a cheaper generator.

Contrary to some of the articles I've read, the FERC decision does not reverse the PUCO's decision to allow the cost of the PPAs to become the responsibility of captive distribution customers.  It simply rescinds its prior waiver of review of the PPA itself.  The companies are now free to submit the PPAs to FERC for review.  If FERC approves them, then everything can proceed as planned.  However, it is unlikely that FERC will approve the PPAs because they allow AEP & FE to charge their captive customers to subsidize their shareholders profits.

So, what's a greedy and poorly managed utility to do?  FE initially wanted to pretend that its PPA will be found just and reasonable by FERC.  How much money and political influence would THAT require?  Remember, the cost of civic and political activities is the financial responsibility of shareholders, not ratepayers.  The cost of buying FERC is likely to obviate any temporary profits that may come from an 8-year PPA.  They're not a cheap date like state utility commissions.  However the company has apparently crunched the numbers and come to its senses.  FE is now attempting to bypass FERC review by doing away with the PPA, while still collecting the charge it would levy on Ohio consumers.  AEP is being a little more realistic, if not downright arrogant.  AEP's CEO soothed investor agitation by claiming it will make the Ohio legislature re-regulate generation so that it may collect the cost of service, plus a return, for its Ohio generators.  This would effectively end retail generation choice in Ohio.  Is legislation that will cost Ohio electric ratepayers more money really that easy for AEP that it simply needs to want it and wave its magic wand?  Time will tell.

Meanwhile, FirstEnergy wants to make its regulated Mon Power and Potomac Edison affiliates in West Virginia purchase another non-competitive generator from its competitive generation affiliate.  It's just like re-regulating generation in Ohio, but the legislative work is already done.  And FirstEnergy has already successfully pulled off a similar affiliate transaction a couple years ago when its competitive generation affiliate "sold" the Harrison Power Station to regulated Mon Power and Potomac Edison.  West Virginia electric consumers have already bailed out one of FirstEnergy's uncompetitive generators, what's one more?  This time, FE wants to "sell" its Pleasants Power Station to Mon Power and Potomac Edison.  But Mon Power already owned an 8% share of Pleasants, which it "sold" to FE Generation as part of the Harrison deal.  Now FE Generation wants to sell the same power station back to Mon Power.  Pleasants is like the FE hot potato, bought and sold among affiliates as necessary to generate cash.  The only fly in the ointment this time is that FE put a price on Pleasants when it "sold" it last time.  I'm sure the cost to Mon Power can't be more than what FE Generation paid them for the plant a couple years ago.  It's not like the price of antique coal generation stations has shot up in the past few years.  But, never fear, I'm sure FE can pay the right people to convince the WV PSC that the plant is as valuable as the amount of cash FE needs to raise from its sale.

And don't forget... all this stashing of competitive generators into regulated companies is only temporary.  If power prices recover and these generators once again become competitive, AEP & FE will find a way to "sell" these plants back to their competitive generation companies.  It's all about shareholder return and making as much money as possible.... and ratepayers are the source of investor owned utility profits.  The idea that regulation protects consumers in the absence of competition is nothing more than a fig leaf.  Utilities that operate in both a competitive and regulated environment will continue to shift assets around to generate the most profit for their shareholders.

Depends on who you ask.  Corporations hoping to profit from building infrastructure on private property say that any one who opposes their plan in a "NIMBY" (Not In My Backyard).  It's nothing more than a stupid attempt at name-calling by the propagandist in order to paint anyone who stands in the way of corporate profits as selfish, uninformed and unacceptable in order to have others disregard their opinion quite apart from the facts of the matter.

The NIMBY label is nothing new.

What is new is the degrees of NIMBY-ism.  One of the arguments against NIMBY-ism is that the NIMBY will benefit from the infrastructure.  But what happens when infrastructure is proposed for the backyard of someone who does not benefit from it?  Are they still a NIMBY?

And what happens when a NIMBY who will benefit from the infrastructure objects, but insists on still receiving the benefits?

Enter the silliest academic "study" I've read in a long, long time.  Dr. Sanja Lutzeyer and Dr. Laura Taylor of NCSU, along with Dr. Daniel Phaneuf of the University of Wisconsin, recently released study called “The Amenity Costs of Offshore Wind Farms: Evidence from a Choice Experiment."

The study is the result of a survey of North Carolina beach vacationers.  It asked them if they would pay more to rent a beach house with a view of offshore wind farms.  No, they would not.  In fact, most of the beach tourists wanted a discount on their rental if they had to look at offshore wind farms, especially at night when they are lit up with red, blinking lights.  The study concludes that building wind farms off the shore of North Carolina will destroy its tourism industry.

The study also shared that the respondents generally supported wind energy, but Not In My Ocean View.

Where do these folks think wind energy they want to benefit from gets generated?  Is it supposed to be generated by wind farms in someone else's back yard who won't benefit from it?  Are others supposed to have their views, their night time skyline, their farm business, and their tourism destroyed so that these beach goers can have wind energy produced by wind farms that they don't have to look at? 

I'm sure this same attitude (or worse) would also be applied to huge, honking, new transmission lines proposed to transmit far away wind energy to the North Carolina beaches.  But, of course, nobody is stupid enough to propose a gigantic HVDC transmission line along North Carolina's coast.

But someone has been stupid enough to propose several enormous transmission lines on virgin land (known as "green field" projects) stretching through the back yards and working farms of thousands of folks in the Midwest for the benefit of those in Carolina beach shacks.

Here's the take away... if you like wind energy, put it in your own back yard.  If that costs a little more, then that's the price you pay to be "green."  Don't expect a whole bunch of folks who will receive no benefit to make a sacrifice for you.

Who's the ultimate NIMBY?

The media fantasy about Clean Line being spun in Oklahoma has officially jumped the shark.

News outlet KJRH says that Claremore company, Pelco Industrial, LLC, "will produce the massive transmission line."  You mean they're going to make all the parts for the line?  Because that's what you said, KJRH.

Pelco makes steel utility poles.  That's all they make.  They don't make lattice towers, which may be used for portions of the line, especially where the project turns from a straight line (angle structures), makes a long span, or crosses rugged terrain.  They don't make conductor (the wire attached to the poles).  They don't make insulators.  They don't make any of the other thousand parts that are required to build a transmission line.  The truth is that Pelco may only manufacture any steel utility poles used by the project.

May.  Pelco and Clean Line describe their partnership as a MOU designating Pelco as a "preferred supplier."  I've seen nothing about a definitive contract awarding Pelco the work.  The truth is there's always the possibility that this work may be snatched out from under Pelco at a later point in the project.

Here's how real utilities source transmission line components:  They issue a Request for Proposals for needed components.  Then they evaluate the responses on the basis of price, suitability, quality, deliverability, and other factors.  Then they award the contract to the best candidate.  Real utilities don't award component contracts years before they know what they'll actually need in order to butter up a state or community to support their transmission project.  Real utilities have a budget for their transmission project.  Real utilities set up their project financing based on their realistic and detailed budget.  Everything they purchase has to fit within their budget.  Cost overruns may not be financed, depending on how much over budget it runs, and the financial institution may question whether the borrower is making sound financial decisions in spending its loot.  A half-finished project that runs out of money doesn't produce any revenue with which to repay the loan.

So, while being a "preferred supplier" sounds good, the rubber will meet the road when it comes time to sign an actual contract.

KJRH says:

But wait a tick... Clean Line has been claiming to be BFFs with Pelco and Claremore for years, according to a 2013 radio show.

So, this is the first time these BFFs got together in Claremore?  Or is that just the "made for TV" version?

KJRH says Clean Line will produce "hundreds of permanent jobs" for Oklahomans.  Where are these jobs?  Clean Line is a transmission line.  Transmission lines are built by highly skilled labor.  Clean Line won't be picking up day labor at the K-Mart parking lot to get the job done.  Only a handful of companies in the U.S. are skilled to accomplish the actual construction of a transmission line, and these companies perform the work on location with their own workers.  Once the line is constructed, the jobs disappear.  It takes little labor to operate or maintain a transmission line once it's completed.  Where and what are the "hundreds of permanent jobs?"  The transmission line will be remotely operated from the control room of a regional transmission organization in another state.  Even maintenance is a hit or miss, occasional occupation.  If a brand new transmission line needs "hundreds" of people to maintain it on a daily basis, maybe it's not such a quality product you'd want taking up space in your community.

Pelco says the transmission project will bring nearly 200 jobs to the area.

So manufacturing steel transmission poles for one transmission project is going to be a permanent occupation for 200 people in Claremore?  Will the poles need to be continually replaced?  At some point, won't Pelco have manufactured all the steel poles needed for Clean Line's project?  This claim really doesn't make sense to me.  How about you?

And here's the reality about Clean Line pumping money into Oklahoma's economy.  All the "economic development" will take place in Claremore and at the source end of the project, if new wind farms are constructed (and remember, Clean Line is only a transmission company, they don't build or operate wind farms).  Neither place will shoulder the burden of the actual transmission line.  Claremore is not on the transmission line route, and neither is the potential wind farm area.  While these areas may temporarily prosper, there's a huge patch of Oklahoma in between that will make an economic sacrifice by hosting a transmission line that provides no benefit to them.  No landowners forced to sell easements for the transmission line will economically benefit from it.  Easement payments only attempt to compensate for loss, not reward landowners for their sacrifice.  The few in Claremore profit at the expense of the many along the transmission route.  Nobody in Oklahoma will be allowed to use, or benefit from, the electricity transmitted on a Clean Line.

The transcript gets a few words wrong, but the intent is clear.  Clean Line says they designed their projects so they wouldn't compete with local utilities.

Hahahaaaaaaaa!

That's the hokiest reason to export natural resources out of state for profit that I've ever heard!  Let's see... don't "compete" with local electric providers to produce lower electricity prices for Oklahomans, but instead export Oklahoma's natural resources out-of-state and "compete" with local electric suppliers in the Southeast to provide lower electric rates for their customers?  And make a huge profit doing so?  Perhaps Oklahomans should consider how exporting their natural resources for the short-term gain of a select few precludes any long-term benefit they could receive from providing lower electric rates for Oklahomans.  Using Oklahoma's natural resources to produce lower electric rates in-state could draw all sorts of new energy-intensive businesses to Oklahoma.  And those new businesses would provide hundreds, or thousands, of real permanent jobs for Oklahomans.  Instead, Oklahoma's leadership is cutting off its long term prosperity in exchange for the temporary gain of just a few, and allowing businesses to develop and prosper in other parts of the country using Oklahoma's natural resources.

Reality can be cruel.  Think about it.

What is it Clean Line Energy Partners says about the necessity for its transmission projects?

Clean Line continually spins the yarn that wind energy will not develop in its "resource areas" without the construction of its "Clean" lines.

Here's a map of the "resource area" for Clean Line's Grain Belt Express project.

GBE's "resource area" roughly includes Ford and Clark Counties, Kansas.

Clean Line says no wind will develop there without a "Clean" Line to transmit it to population centers.

But it did.

Last Friday, a huge press conference was held to announce that the Cimarron Bend wind farm was fully subscribed and under construction in Clark County Kansas, just south of Ford County.

On its website, the developer initially proposed that Cimarron Bend is a "candidate" in GBE's resource area that may "connect" with GBE.

However, GBE is still bumping along trying to get permitted in Missouri, after being denied last summer.  The developers of Cimarron Bend, however, moved on.

Customers of Cimarron Bend are the Kansas City, Kansas, Board of Public Works (200 MW) and Google (200 MW), who both signed bundled power purchase agreements for Cimarron Bend's 400 MW capacity.  Cimarron Bend didn't need GBE in order to be developed at all.  There's plenty of existing transmission to move the power to Kansas City and wherever Google plans to use it, and the project is expected to come online in early 2017.

Kansas wind energy from the GBE resource area CAN be developed without GBE after all.  And more importantly, it will be consumed by Kansans.  Grain Belt Express proposes to export 4,000 MW of wind energy from the resource area out-of-state, with none available for use by Kansans, who also like lower bills and cleaner energy.

Good for BPU, good for Kansas City, good for Kansans.

But not so good for GBE, whose resource area is going to be further developed for use by Kansans while the company remains stuck in permit hell.  The world doesn't wait for Clean Line, and every day that passes lessens the company's relevance.

So, why did Cimarron Bend initially think its project was a candidate for GBE, when plenty of opportunity to sell its energy to Kansans existed?  Because

Cimarron Bend needed GBE to market itself to a wider pool of customers, in order to maximize its profit.  "States further east" are participants in other, higher-priced electric markets, and GBE was convenient to get it there.  Of course, GBE also makes a profit by doing so.

GBE is nothing but a profit-making enterprise designed to profit off wind farms, who maximize their own profits by selling into higher priced markets.  GBE is not "necessary" to develop wind resources in Kansas, or anywhere else.  It's only necessary to increase wind energy profits for a select group of investors.

And utilities in those "states further east" aren't signing up to purchase expensive, imported wind power.  At a Transmission Summit earlier this month, Southern Company's Vice President of Energy Policy had this to say:

So, congratulations to Tradewind Energy for successfully developing its Cimarron Bend wind project for benefit of Kansans!

Just one more nail in Clean Line's coffin.

Perhaps one of the most satisfying articles about the U.S. Department of Energy's decision to "participate" in the Plains and Eastern Clean Line came from something called The Covington (Tennessee) Leader.  Perhaps an editor or reporter was having an "off" day, or perhaps an editor or reporter wasn't fooled by the bullshit in Clean Line's press release and simply decided to tell the truth.  This is a rare opportunity to see what goes on in today's modern newsroom.

Opposed project gets federal green light begins by revealing that The Leader received an "email blast" and press release from a prominent public relations firm.

West Rogers is a branding, advertising and public relations firm who will "analyze your goals and develop a communications strategy that meets them."  In other words, West Rogers will create whatever reality you need in order to accomplish your goals.  On its website, West Rogers shares one of its communication strategies to accomplish your goals:

The Public Relations Society of America says astroturfing is often associated with unethical front group activities.  And they say it constitutes improper conduct and malpractice under their Code of Ethics and should be avoided.  Maybe West Rogers isn't a member of the PRSA, but The Covington Leader seems to be familiar with ethical public relations, and they don't seem to like West Rogers very much.  And The Covington Leader proceeded to tear West Rogers' press release apart as only a seasoned public relations professional can:

The Leader is talking about "glittering generalities," which are one of the Seven Common Propaganda Devices.  And the Leader wasn't fooled by them.

The Covington Leader reported the truth. 

Reporting the truth is in short supply these days.  When newspapers were better funded through advertising, they had more reporters.  The reporters would investigate the press releases they received from companies like West Rogers, hear both sides of the story, and separate fact from fiction.  They would then report the facts.  However, in this day and age of shrinking newspaper advertising revenue, newspapers have fewer reporters, and they pay them less.  Today's reporter, especially at a small-town paper, does the work of 10 reporters of the past.  The modern reporter no longer has the luxury of time to investigate press releases.  The reporter may only have minutes to turn a press release into a story.  As a result, many press releases are simply re-written as "news" and the investigation process doesn't happen.

This is why I'm a huge advocate of opposition groups writing and issuing their own, competing press releases.  While good press releases are a bit of an art, it's nothing a transmission opposition group can't learn with lots of practice.  A concise, well-written press release works, where bombarding a reporter with helpful links and things to read doesn't.  A reporter simply doesn't have time these days to read, analyze, and investigate the reams of technical and other material that are generated by a specific issue.  A short press release is often their only view of the other side of the issue.

Newspapers like The Covington Leader are very rare these days.  Learning today's public relations game is a transmission opponent's responsibility, if they want to help generate fair press.  Otherwise, only one side of the story gets told.