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Letting the Cat Out of the Bag

5/12/2025

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An out-of-state utility company hoping to build the MidAtlantic Resiliency Link, or MARL, has been telling local elected officials that its project will bring millions of dollars of new tax revenue to county coffers.

But, will it really?  Or is this just a pig in a poke?
A pig in a poke is a thing that is bought without first being inspected, and thus of unknown authenticity or quality. The idiom is attested in 1555:

I wyll neuer bye the pyg in the poke
Thers many a foule pyg in a feyre cloke

I will never buy the pig in the poke
There's many a foul pig in a fair cloak

A "poke" is a sack, so the image is of a concealed item being sold.
​
Starting in the 19th century, this idiom was explained as a confidence trick where a farmer would substitute a cat for a suckling pig when bringing it to market. When the buyer discovered the deception, he was said to "let the cat out of the bag", that is, to learn of something unfortunate prematurely, hence the expression "letting the cat out of the bag", meaning to reveal that which is secret.
Has anyone bothered to ask the company to show you their math and verify that it actually agrees with the utility tax scheme of your state?  I don't think anyone has.  I've heard that when details are sought, the subject gets changed, or when pressed they say we will find out the details during the state PSC case.  That's magic math, according to one of my elementary school teachers -- where the answer appears out of thin air without showing your work to calculate it.

How ARE utility taxes assessed and paid?  If you don't know, it's time to find out.  There's a whole lot of confusion and nobody at the local county level seems to know.  Don't take some out-of-state company's word about how your own tax system works.  Here's the skinny on how it works in West Virginia...
Although most real and personal property is assessed at the local level by county assessors with county commissions approving the final rates, the Board of Public Works approves the real and personal property values of public utilities whose properties stretch across two or more counties. Rather than have each of the 55 assessors determine the value, the property is appraised and assessed by the Tax Division.
Utility property taxes are not handled by local government.  It's handled by a state office.  Counties have no authority over the rate or the collection of these taxes.  Once the state has assessed these utility taxes, the utilities appeal and negotiate these rates to have the tax lowered.  Once a deal is reached, the state tax office apportions the utility tax it has collected like this:

 "...the value of the property therein of every such owner or operator as valued or assessed hereunder and the relative value of such operating property within each county compared to the value of the total operating property within the state, to be determined upon such factors as the Auditor shall deem proper;".

Bottom line?  Counties have no control over utility taxes on transmission lines and the tax rates can fluctuate.  Counties only get a small portion of what is collected.  Go ahead, check with your county clerk to find out how much utility tax revenue your county received last year, and then figure out how much of that was actually due to electric transmission lines that cross your county.  Maybe you can buy a cup of coffee with it?

So, where did the company get  the numbers it is using to entice local support?  Did they sit down with the West Virginia Board of Public Works and the state tax commissioner and negotiate a deal?  Did they calculate how the value of the utility property will depreciate over the years until it's nothing but salvage?  Did they mention that transmission utilities don't buy real estate, they simply take an easement and the landowner continues paying taxes on his property, including the easement?

I doubt it.


Corporations are old hands at manipulating local governments to believe that there's a pig in their poke, and not a mangy alley cat, when the corporation is selling new development projects to us "locals."  And so they have developed a computer program to help them out that would make P.T. Barnum proud.  But, instead of calling it something fitting like "Circus Sideshow Software" its name is IMPLAN.  IMPLAN calculates job numbers, taxes, and other economic development numbers that excite local elected officials based on the capital costs of a proposed project.  If the utility company isn't using IMPLAN to come up with these pie-in-the-sky tax revenue numbers, it's using another very similar software company.

And you know what they say about computers -- garbage in, garbage out!

Economic factors calculated by a computer algorithm are not realistic.  You'd get more tax revenue and jobs out of a new fast food restaurant than you'd get from a new transmission line passing through your county and delivering nothing of value on its way.

Job predictions are extremely inflated.  I have seen transmission full-time jobs predicted over the long term that don't even make sense!  Building high-voltage transmission is a highly specialized skill.  Contractors from other states hired to do the actual build will import their own workers for the duration of the job in your community.  IMPLAN and its computerized cousins calculate all the economic impact that such transient workers will cause and then try to sell it to local elected officials as a "benefit."  Hotel rooms, fast food, and gas for their vehicles for the month or so they're onsite isn't really going to make a difference on a local level.  In addition, IMPLAN will spit out some number of full-time, permanent jobs created in your community by the project.  I'm sorry, but this just doesn't happen.
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Local transmission workers discuss where to place their ladder so they can climb up and squeeze electricity through the new transmission lines in your community.
Once the line is built, there are no local jobs associated with it.  Operation and maintenance of the line is handled by remote teams.

But, back to those tax revenue claims...

Ask the company how it has balanced the actual reduction in local tax revenue caused by the project  with the fictional number spit out by IMPLAN.  It hasn't done that at all.

New transmission lines across your county are going to devalue the real estate in your tax base.  A property crossed by a transmission line loses value and the owner of that parcel can appeal his assessment because of the devaluation the transmission line has caused.  In addition, the transmission line can impact many planned developments and future land uses.  What development is currently going on, planned, or dreamed about by your county?  Maybe you want to lay that out on a map to see how close it is to the proposed transmission line route?  New subdivisions, business parks, commercial developments, or maybe just some community improvement like parks, schools, or community services, can all be impeded, or cancelled altogether, if the new transmission line interferes with the proposed development.  Whittled down to its most basic level, it's going to harm local landowners and investors who planned to monetize their land in the future, whether it's for retirement or simple profit.  New transmission lines cause a decrease in your county's current tax base and any future prospects that might increase it.

Also consider that the transmission company actually pays no taxes at all on the transmission lines it builds... you pay those taxes!  A utility collects its cost of service from ratepayers (plus regulated profit).  Everything the company spends on its transmission lines, including real estate, personal property, business and income taxes, is reimbursed to them by electric ratepayers as the expense is incurred.  All persons in your county who pay an electric bill (including the county itself) are paying those taxes!

Think about that while you're comparing the transmission company's bulging poke with reality.  The cat's out of the bag!
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Grain Belt Express Gets Dirty

5/10/2025

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For the past 15 years, Grain Belt Express has been all about exporting "clean" wind power from southwestern Kansas.  Grain Belt Express begins there because of the area's past potential for new wind turbines.

No more.  Grain Belt Express is now all about...
Grain Belt Express provides open access delivery for all energy sources based on competitive contracts between electricity buyers and sellers. 
Grain Belt's application for a taxpayer-funded loan from the U.S. Department of Energy is based on this qualifier from the DOE's Draft Environmental Impact Statement:
​The first paragraph of the Executive Summary states that in order to qualify for a loan, the
project must be eligible under Section 1703 of Title XVII (the Clean Energy Financing Program), which defines eligible projects as those that, “avoid, reduce, or sequester air pollutants or anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases [GHGs]; and employ new or significantly improved technologies as compared to commercial technologies in service in the United States at
the time the guarantee is issued” (Public Law [P.L.] 109-58, Section 1703(a)).
The DEIS makes this presumption: “The Project could also help reduce overall GHG emissions by allowing new renewable energy projects to access the electric grid, potentially leading to the replacement of existing fossil-fuel power plants, while providing additional power to expanding renewable energy markets.” (Table 3.1.1).
The DEIS further states that the No Action Alternative would not support attainment of the U.S. government’s established target to reduce GHG emissions by 50 to 52 percent from 2005 levels economy-wide by 2030 (The White House 2021). (Sec. 3.1.3).
Grain Belt Express is no longer eligible for this loan, and its Draft Environmental Impact Statement is no longer valid.
When did Grain Belt Express stop being all about "clean energy"?  November 5, 2024, when Donald Trump was elected to his second term as President.  In fact, GBE parent company Invenergy's CEO Michael Polsky was a big donor for Trumps Inaguaration.  And now Polsky has set out on a campaign to pretend Grain Belt Express is something it isn't.  Check out this interview where the chameleon in chief convinces vapid Fox News personality Maria Bartoromo that his project is something new.

How stupid do they think we are?

Grain Belt Express is now attempting to attract energy slurping data centers to locate in Missouri and take service on Grain Belt Express.  Why would data centers do that when they can locate in southwestern Kansas near the source of the energy that Grain Belt is importing to Missouri?  If data centers built in Kansas, they wouldn't have to pay exorbitant fees to Grain Belt Express to supply energy from SW Kansas.  I'm pretty sure the financial incentives to locate in Missouri over Kansas are not going to cover the cost of importing power on Grain Belt Express.  Why would data centers buy the Grain Belt cow when they can get the milk for free in Kansas?

Furthermore, why is Kansas content to have the energy it produces shipped to Missouri so that data centers will locate in Missouri and so that Missouri can feast on all the tax revenue data centers provide?
“Kansans working to balance household budgets and run businesses want energy that’s affordable and reliable, and that’s what we are getting with Grain Belt Express, all without ratepayers being forced to pay for it,” said Kansas House Speaker Dan Hawkins.
Sorry, Dan, but Grain Belt Express does NOT provide any reduction in energy costs for Kansans.  It ships energy produced in Kansas to Missouri and raises prices in Kansas by reducing the supply of energy available for Kansans.  Supply and demand, Dan, supply and demand.  Have I got a deal for Dan!!!  Instead of Grain Belt Express, how about a whole bunch of new data centers in southwest Kansas that produce hundreds of millions of dollars a year in property and other tax revenue?  You could have that if you reject Grain Belt Express!  Wake up, Dan, they're bamboozling you!

New data centers want to locate in places where there is a vast supply of power, not places where they are dependent upon long distance transmission lines that may never come to fruition.  And what about all those wind farms in southwest Kansas planned to feed Grain Belt Express?  Are they all still proceeding full steam ahead under Donald Trump?  Better take another look at that one!

Grain Belt Express touts its 39 municipal customers in Missouri in its recent press release:
“This announcement shows once again how much Missouri can contribute to big infrastructure projects like this transmission line, which will help bring energy savings and reliability to 39 municipal utilities across the state."
That seems to be the only customer Grain Belt Express has... still.  Those 39 Missouri municipalities are contracted to take less than 5% of Grain Belt's capacity.  Because Grain Belt Express is a merchant transmission project, it needs signed contracts to produce enough revenue to be financially viable.  Less than five percent of its capacity is NOT enough to support the project's revenue requirement.  Grain Belt has been trying to find more customers than the Missouri munis for ten years now and still hasn't announced any other customers.  Grain Belt Express cannot be built unless it finds enough customers to cover its costs.

And now Grain Belt Express has morphed once again into a transmission line for new data centers who probably are not interested.  How much more money is Michael Polsky going to drop into this dead dog of a project, trying to make it pencil out?  He didn't get to be so stinking rich by making bad business decisions.  Isn't it time to give up on Grain Belt Express?

Grain Belt Express is an albatross around everyone's neck.  It's a project idea that has been dead for years.  Let it go!
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Shady Surveys = Skewed Stories

3/18/2025

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Sometimes the special interests get a little carried away with themselves, especially when the young folks who work there think they're saving the world.  The progressive left is still trying to find a way to make transmission lines "less bad" for landowners so that they will happily accept them.

NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN!
I was recently contacted by a gal representing shady far left groups who think paying bribes to community members unaffected by new transmission projects is going to be the solution to transmission opposition. Save your effort.  It doesn't work.  And... as if I would help 

The World Resources Institute
and 
Data for Progress 

with anything at all.

And it went like this:
On behalf of research teams at Data for Progress and World Resources Institute, I’m reaching out to ask if you would be willing to participate in a 30-min or 45-min confidential recorded interview to answer questions about your experiences with community engagement and transmission infrastructure projects. The opportunity to learn from your expertise with the PATH project would be a particularly valuable contribution to our research. 

We are inviting advocates both for and against transmission projects, policymakers, developers, community organizations, and other key stakeholders to these discussions. In the interview, we hope to learn about your familiarity with and views of community engagement efforts around transmission development, including what you view as working well or as areas for improvement. 
These interviews are part of a larger research project designed to examine barriers and opportunities for transmission deployment, including a specific focus on community engagement and understanding the role that community benefits (and tools like community benefits agreements) could potentially play in addressing some of these challenges, or if not, what their shortcomings are. We plan to synthesize what we learn from these interviews into a report which will also include evidence from case studies, focus groups, and survey data.
 
We would be grateful for the opportunity to include valuable insights from your unique expertise in our research. Your interview responses will be confidential and nothing you say will be attributed to you or your organization. Please reach out if you have any questions about the interview format.


If you’d like to participate in this interview, please let us know, and we would be delighted to set up a 30-min or 45-min Zoom discussion in the next few weeks.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Does this deserve a response?  Not really, but I wanted to have a little fun.
I’m not sure how I can help you with your project.  How many actual transmission opponents are you interviewing?  The fact of the matter is that once a transmission project is sited on private property, the impacted property owner will oppose it.  It doesn’t matter how many “benefits” the government or the transmission owner want to shower on others in the community who are NOT impacted.  For instance, if a transmission line is sited in my back yard and I will have to live with it in perpetuity, it doesn’t matter much to me if somebody wants to fund a new park across town, or in an adjacent community that is not impacted at all.  Community “benefits” are nothing more than a bribe to buy the advocacy of unaffected persons.  It doesn’t make the landowner whole.  “Benefits” to people who are not impacted do nothing to change opposition and only create arguments and bad feelings in local communities.  I wouldn’t throw my neighbor under the bus for my own personal gain, and I hope you wouldn’t either.

Maybe you should change your polling questions to ask people if they support a transmission line ACROSS THEIR OWN PROPERTY that will use eminent domain to take the land if the landowner refuses.  Or if a landowner is willing to sacrifice his home for the “benefit” of people who are sacrificing nothing for the effort.

The only opinions that matter here are the ones of impacted persons.

Have a great day!

P.S.  Transmission opponents are unlikely to give away our strategy to dark money transmission advocacy groups.
Perky young gal was undeterred.  
Thank you for your thoughtful response. I completely understand if you do not wish to participate in this research project. Thank you for sharing your perspective. I respect the time you spent writing this reply and wanted to provide more context to you about this work. 

As an independent non-profit research organization, we hope to present a balanced view of challenges and shortcomings when it comes to how companies have approached transmission development, as well as opportunities to ensure that landowners have a meaningful say in these projects, including when that means organizing to stop them or to improve the conditions under which they do get built. We are representing a variety of perspectives across nearly 100 participants in our interview and focus group research, and have invited transmission opponents to participate in these interviews ranging from directly impacted landowners to county commissioners that have spoken out against projects. Our research included focus groups with rural landowners to understand their views on the important questions that you raise -- such as how they would feel about transmission infrastructure being built across their own property and their views on the use of eminent domain. You make valid points we've also heard during our research about the perceptions of benefits and their limitations, which will inform the analysis in our report. 

In case it is of interest to you, we are also conducting 15-20 minute anonymous surveys as part of this project. We'd welcome your response if you would want to participate in this in lieu of an interview, but we also respect your decision to decline participation in the project. 

Once again, I wanted to thank you for your time and the care you put into your reply. Have a wonderful weekend!
Their research included focus groups with rural landowners to understand their views on the important questions that I raised -- such as how they would feel about transmission infrastructure being built across their own property and their views on the use of eminent domain?

How many actual rural landowners went willingly to a focus group held by these far left groups?  How much were they paid, and were they told the truth about who was paying for the focus group and how their participation would be used?  I doubt it.  It never is with focus groups.  If there's so much lying going on at these groups, who could trust the results?  The ones who paid for the focus group want to use the knowledge gained to skew public opinion.  

Right.  With another biased "report" that promises throwing money at the transmission problem will solve it.  This problem can never be solved until transmission is properly buried on existing transportation rights of way and landowners are not victimized over and over again.

Do these groups know Biden isn't President any longer and they are not running the federal government anymore?  Who are they going to convince with their bogus reports?


Nobody.  

I suggest they redirect their grant money toward other important social dilemmas, like finding out why environmentalists are burning their Teslas and buying gas guzzlers.  Well, if they have any grant money left that is... ;-)
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The Only Thing Reliable About GBE Is The Propaganda It Produces

9/7/2024

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Student reporter Mary McCue Bell is studying Investigative Journalism.  Stay in school, girl, you've got a lot more to learn!  Now I'm not sure what they're teaching in school these days, but a real investigative reporter doesn't approach a story with a preconceived agenda.  Bless her heart, she actually interviewed someone with a different point of view, but then curated the actual information she received to fit with her own opinion.  That's not investigative journalism, that's propaganda.

A fight across Missouri over transmission towers for reliable energy, her headline blared.

Reliable energy?  She forgot to "investigate" that word.  Reliability is a function of regional grid planners.  In Missouri, that's managed by MidContinent Independent System Operator, or MISO.  If a transmission line is needed to provide reliable energy in Missouri, it is planned and ordered by MISO.  Grain Belt Express is NOT a MISO project.  Instead, it is a speculative investment venture, an unneeded addition to MISO's grid.  GBE's owners are speculating that if they can build the project that voluntary customers will pay separate fees to use it to transmit energy across the state.  However, GBE only has one customer in Missouri for less than 5% of its available capacity.  GBE is not for "reliable energy."

Miss Mary was also completely bamboozled by the U.S. Department of Energy's National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor (NIETC) designation process, which claims to be creating corridors for the transmission of reliable energy.  However, DOE also has no authority to plan the transmission system, or order transmission projects.  Its role is advisory only.  It can produce mind numbing reports, and designate corridors for private transmission developers like Invenergy, but it has no authority or jurisdiction to plan or approve the transmission system.  Only the regional grid operators like MISO can determine that a line is needed for reliability, and MISO relies on its own deep knowledge of the system to make plans.  It doesn't take orders from a silly, political agency like DOE.  The only thing reliable about GBE is the propaganda it produces.

Perhaps Mary should have pondered the significance of the passage of time before declaring that "a nationwide plan to increase the reliability of electricity and reduce consumer costs" is playing out in Missouri.  The idea for Grain Belt Express was hatched more than a dozen years ago, long before the government's recent "plan" that started with the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in 2021.  This battle started long before Mary recently discovered it.

Missouri citizens elected Senator Josh Hawley as their representative, no matter how disappointing that may be to Miss Mary.  His job is to use his "bully pulpit" to protect their interests.  Is the "bully pulpit" phrase just a sullen swipe at him because he refused to be interviewed by a student journalist with an agenda?  She certainly loved the bully pulpits inhabited by clean energy pot stirrer James Owen and political gasbag Tyson Slocum.

James Owen is not insensitive to landowners?  Ha ha ha.  No landowner actually believes that.  I don't either.  I watched his arrogant dismissal of their concerns while testifying at the PSC.  Maybe you ought to check his previous statements and videos.

Despite what the DOE told Miss Mary, the fact is that Grain Belt Express requested the Midwest-Plains transmission corridor to benefit its bogged down project with the ability to appeal state permitting denials, like the one recently ordered by an appeals court in Illinois.  GBE also wants a corridor so it can score a federal taxpayer-backed loan guarantee to build its project that currently doesn't have enough customers to be economic.  The Kansas Corporation Commission testified before a legislative committee just last week that GBE told them they requested the 5-mile wide corridor from DOE.  Who's lying here?  The DOE, or GBE, or the KCC?  Why don't you investigate that?

And here's something else to investigate... transmission lines do not create electricity, so they alone cannot "keep up with the nation's increasing power demands."  What we need is new baseload generation that can be depended upon to generate when needed, and it needs to be located near the increasing power demands, not imported hundreds of miles on unnecessary transmission lines.

What does Otto Lynch from Pennsylvania know about farming in Missouri, with his contention that farmers can easily farm around towers?  Nothing at all!  His views about farming are of no consequence and add absolutely nothing to this story.

Ditto on political gasbag Tyson Slocum, farming grant money in Washington DC for his half-assed attacks on the energy industry.  His perception of the landowners within proposed National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors comes from the smug satisfaction of someone who isn't impacted in the least.  The real jackbooted thugs pretend that "meaningful consultation" with landowners before carrying on to a pre-determined conclusion somehow makes the stealing of private property okay.  It doesn't.  Would it be okay if I allowed you to cry a little about losing your purse before I forcibly took it?

Slocum's comments demonstrate a profound lack of knowledge about NIETCs.  I honestly can't remember him ever once commenting or being involved in this process.  He is inconsequential and his comments add nothing to this story.  He's a non-entity who never misses a chance to display his ignorance to anyone who will listen.

Key word here -- "investigate."  I give this project an F.

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How They Steal Your Power

9/2/2024

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What's scarier to greedy corporate interests than a grassroots movement against their industry?  Your success!  Corporate interests, whether it's the electric transmission industry, housing, data centers, or any other invasive and destructive industry are terrified of being thwarted by grassroots movements in the communities where they want to make money.

Last week, a grassroots group opposed to a new transmission line through central Maryland took their fight to the industry at a conference celebrating the data center industry in Frederick, Maryland.  
But the well-publicized protest was anticipated by conference organizers, who met the challenge with attempts to steal the protestors' power.
Leaders of the Maryland Technology Council, which organized the daylong session, had anticipated the ruckus. They briefed conference attendees on protocols and strategies for coping with the protesters and insisted that the proposed power line project is not directly connected to the Quantum Loophole data center campus, which is in the early stages of development in Frederick County.
Let's examine this article using one of my favorite tools -- the seven common propaganda devices.  This tool is one of the oldest in the propaganda handbook.

The device employed most frequently by the conference organizers was "Name Calling."  

First example -- in the quoted paragraph above the demonstration was referred to as "the ruckus."  Protestors were also referred to as "noisy", a "flashmob", and "outraged".  A noisy, outraged, flashmob ruckus, a description that is intended to turn the reader against the protestors.  It's an ad hominem argument... don't pay any attention to what those people are saying because they are members of an unacceptable group.

​Protestors were also called uneducated.
While Quantum Loophole executives tried to talk to some of the protesters during the lunch hour, Rick Weldon, president of the Frederick County Chamber of Commerce, later said some of the demonstrators at the community college Thursday didn’t have access to all the relevant information — and that some would be tough to persuade.

“Frankly, no matter what the subject, they’re going to hold up a sign and yell at you because they don’t want anything to change,” he said.
...another name calling technique to marginalize you and steal your power.  I'm going to guess that Rick Weldon knows a lot less about MPRP than any one of the protestors, but he uses his position to create a presumption of superior knowledge.  The "education deficit" model has been a long time favorite of transmission project proponents.  They like to think that opposition to transmission only happens because the community doesn't have enough information to make a sensible decision.  However the opposite is actually true, the more you know about a proposed transmission project, the worse it sounds.  No amount of information or "education" can change the mind of a landowner threatened by new transmission ripping through his largest investment.

Uneducated outrage is how opponents were framed in order to make conference attendees see them as an unacceptable group who should not be acknowledged.

Meanwhile, conference organizers employed "Glittering Generalities" to boost their own position.  Jobs, school funding, dramatic growth in local businesses, Maryland's economy, land conservation, hiking and biking trails, and the most vague of all... a bright future!

Conference organizers also tried to sever Maryland's data centers from the MPRP.  Either they are uneducated themselves, or they are spinning a carefully crafted alternate reality.  Although Quantum Loophole's power supply is being provided by upgrading a dedicated transmission line to the old Eastalco plant, that doesn't mean QL won't benefit from MPRP.  Quantum Loophole's dedicated transmission line feeds power from the Doubs substation to Quantum Loophole.  Doubs is also the endpoint for the MPRP.  All power flowing through MPRP is delivered to Doubs, where it is transferred to the numerous lines feeding out of Doubs, including the one to Quantum Loophole.  Power from MPRP will absolutely be used at Quantum Loophole.  Could Quantum Loophole get as much power as it needed if MPRP was cancelled?  PJM Interconnection planned MPRP as one of several new 500kV transmission lines to serve data center load in Virginia and Maryland.  And since Quantum Loophole seems to support MPRP, it stands to reason they think they will benefit from it.

The public relations war is heating up.  But what will they say when those same protestors put down their protest signs and go inside the PSC to defend their properties through the legal process?  Will Quantum Loophole step up to defend MPRP?  Or will it use proxies to do so, such as labor unions and local business groups?  A different kind of war will break out at the PSC once the application is filed, and that's where the ultimate decision will be made.
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Digging Into MPRP

7/11/2024

2 Comments

 
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Get your hip waders, folks, it's going to get deep in here!

Last night I attended the MPRP "Open House" in Brunswick.  It made the guy from Assedo pretty nervous that we wouldn't sign in and give them our information, but he said we were welcome to look around.  So, I did.  I think maybe he changed his mind later when he spied us chatting with the reporter from Fox because he found it so intriguing he needed to document it with photographs.  I saw you, dude.  Somehow, I don't think PSEG is going to be using those photos for public relations purposes.

MPRP's "Open House" was right out of the utility playbook.  Free food and beverage, free tchotchkes, and plenty of free propaganda from subject matter "experts" that sometimes couldn't stay within their specialties.  Most of them were very nice, heck, they're just doing a job.  A couple were quite snotty when they realized I knew they were blowing smoke.  And I got so far under the PJM guy's skin that he started "m'am"-ing me.  The sickest part of these open house meetings to me is always the Indoctrination Station for the kiddos.
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Don't leave your kids here coloring propaganda under the watchful eye of strangers.

The first stop was the table with the PJM guy.  Stu Widom had lots of helpful information, but didn't know much about the actual planning process, and it showed.  Got himself all tweaked when I mentioned the precedent PJM has recently set by changing the route of a different project so it doesn't affect wealthy and politically connected people in Virginia's wine and horse country.  Why don't you ask Stu about that tonight?  He likes to pretend that it was for "environmental reasons" but it was nothing of the sort!  The new route crosses the C&O Canal NHP TWICE.  Environmental my foot.  Of course, poking the rich and powerful might affect Stu's own personal environment as one of PJM's political schmoozers, so maybe that's what he meant?  He obviously wasn't there to talk with citizens, but to use his bee smoker on any angry legislators or government officials who showed up.

Next I talked to one of the land agent ladies, who pretended that's not what she was.  I asked her when they were going to release the land agents on the citizens impacted by this project and she acted all confused.  I asked her if land agents would be calling on people BEFORE or AFTER the Maryland Public Service Commission approves this project.  She assured me land agents would only contact you AFTER the MD PSC approves.  We both knew she was full of it, and my investigation of regulatory filings this morning confirms
The Project is a greenfield project for most of the project route, which poses uncertainty and risk. With an in-service date of June 1, 2027, the Project faces an aggressive timeline to execute and complete all construction activities. The Project must manage ROW permitting and land acquisition risks associated with the greenfield line routes in a compressed period of time. For instance, PSEG RT will need to obtain ROWs, rights-of-entry, easements, and temporary access agreements, and in these efforts, may encounter local opposition from landowners. 
Busted!  Those land agents will be on your doorstep as soon as the routing is completed in September.

Next was one of the routing guys who told me this project was needed to supply electricity to the local area.  I told him he was wrong, then he admitted that he wasn't the subject matter expert on that.  He suggested I go over to Stu's table to find the answer to that question.  I said I'd already been there and maybe HE should go talk to Stu.  He refused, so I suggested that he not lie to people about that anymore,

I talked with a delightful young lady at the structure/electrical engineering poster.  She showed me the selected H-frame structures and told me the poles were 40 feet apart and that it would be possible to drive farm equipment between them.  I asked her what happens if someone tried that and accidentally clipped one of the poles and it fell over.  Who would be liable?  She didn't know.  I didn't suggest that she volunteer for a farm machinery rodeo, where the power company person stands in a field with their arms outstretched and pretends to be a transmission tower while farmers see how close they can drive their gigantic pieces of equipment to the "tower" without knocking it over.

I talked with another routing lady who confirmed that paralleling existing transmission lines can actually be MORE destructive than cutting new greenfield lines.  We talked about how homes and other structures are often sited right outside transmission rights of way that have existed for decades.  Paralleling that corridor with a new 150-ft wide easement would destroy everything adjacent to the existing corridor.  She said MPRP would go around homes rather than over or through them, but had to minimize how many times its line crossed the existing line.  There was also a problem where a home stood on either side of the existing easement, preventing expansion on either side.  She didn't know what MPRP would do in that instance.  One of those homes would have to be sacrificed, that's what.  Whichever side of the existing easement has more homes wins.  However, when MPRP uses new easements, it can go around any home or other obstruction and won't have to destroy anyone's home.

And finally, I talked with PSEG's staff lawyer, who happened to be sitting at Stu's table.
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Very nice person who pretty much told the truth and had the answers to my rather unique questions.  She admitted that perhaps some of the other "experts" at the meeting may be making crap up and she had asked them not to do that.  I grilled her on PSEG's federal regulatory filings and cost recovery system.  This morning I found the documents and they mostly confirmed what she told me. 

​PSEG has applied at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to be granted three transmission incentives.  The first is the Abandoned Plant Incentive.  If granted, PSEG would be able to recover all its prudent expenditures on MPRP in the event that it is abandoned before being built through no fault of PSEG.  This would include if cannot get the permits it needs, or if PJM's need for the project changes.  The second is to set a preliminary debt/equity ratio of 55/45%.  This isn't anything to get concerned about.  The third incentive is recovery of PSEG's expenses related to this project once the project has an approved formula rate.  PSEG's initial expenditures will be recovered over a 5-year period once it has a recovery method.  This means that all the money PSEG has spent preparing this project for PJM, ushering it through PJM's competitive process, it's legal costs to make those FERC filings, the cost of all its contractors (routing, engineering, land acquisition, public relations), the food, the coloring books, even those cute little hardhat flashlight keychains (be sure to get one!).  Everything PSEG has already spent will end up added to ratepayer bills once it has its formula rate established.  The one made up fib the lawyer told was that PSEG was paying for all the current costs of the project out of the goodness of their hearts.  I hope she knew as well as I did that those costs were being put in an account as a regulatory asset that would be recovered (with interest) at a later date.

First, PSEG is waiting for FERC to approve its incentives.  Afterwards, PSEG will file for approval of its formula rate and rate of return.  Bet your eyes glazed over just then, right?  Stick with me here...  A formula rate is a set of tables that calculate a yearly rate based on numbers that the transmission company plugs in from their ledger.  As things are paid for, the costs get added to certain accounts, and the account totals get transferred to the formula rate on a yearly basis.  The number that comes out the end of the formula is the amount that electric consumers pay for the transmission project on a yearly basis.  A rate of return is how much interest the company earns on its capital expenses.  That includes physical assets, like transmission lines, land they sit on, and it also includes the cost of building them in the first place.  It's heady stuff, but anyone with a little accounting experience can handle it just fine.

Once the formula rate and rate of return is set by FERC, you can help PSEG look over its costs every year to make sure they don't include any costs in their formula rate that shouldn't be charged to ratepayers.

To wrap up... I urge you to download and read PSEG's application for FERC incentives.  It may answer a bunch of the questions I have seen swirling around, such as where's the data proving need?  Why was this project selected instead of upgrading existing lines?  If you have questions, why not take them to the PSEG attorney at tonight's meeting?  She's fun to talk to.  Be nice. 

Another utility "dog and pony show" in the books.  Don't expect to accomplish much.  MPRP isn't going to be stopped at any of these meetings, but attending is your first step.  It's simply a networking opportunity.  Come hungry.  As one landowner remarked at one of these shows years ago... "We might as well eat.  It might be all we get."
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2 Comments

Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project

6/21/2024

15 Comments

 
Well, here's another particularly noxious transmission project weed!  The so-called "Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project" or MPRP.  This industry loves its acronyms!

In 2023, regional grid manager PJM Interconnection devised a suite of new electric transmission projects designed to import new electricity supplies to new data centers in Northern Virginia, and for Frederick County's new Quantum Loophole project.  Data centers use so much electricity, it's equivalent to large cities sprouting up overnight in previously rural places.  New cities need new power supplies, especially because Maryland has been closing all its baseload power plants that run on fossil fuels.  Before Maryland's recent plant closures under their "clean energy" plan, the state was importing 40% of the energy it used.  Now, it needs even more imports!  We're heading toward more than 50% of Maryland's electricity being imported from neighboring states via new high-voltage transmission lines.  The only two states in the PJM region that generate more electricity than they use and can export to Maryland are West Virginia and Pennsylvania.  The MPRP is importing electricity from southeastern Pennsylvania.  Other new transmission projects are exporting electricity from West Virginia's coal-fired plants to Loudoun County's "Data Center Alley.  It's nothing more than a series of enormous electric extension cords for data centers.  In PJM's planning process, it looked like this:
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Frederick County was sleeping the sleep of the uninformed throughout the planning and approval process at PJM.  And now it has manifested.

The project was assigned by PJM to New Jersey utility Public Service Enterprise Group.  Why them?  PJM put its new project requirements out for bid, and PSEG submitted the best project for PJM's needs.  PSEG also offered a certain price for the project.  There's more to this, but let's stop there for now.  Since PJM approved this project and assigned it to PSEG last December, PSEG has been busy devising a route for the project, and now they have finished and want to share it with the public.

PSEG will be holding public "open house" meetings across the project area early next month.  See website for details.  The "meeting" is hardly an actual meeting though.  It's a series of information stations the public is supposed to file through, and you may be handed a card to fill out with your thoughts at the end of the meeting.  Each little station will be populated with PSEG representatives, and you can ask them questions.  But there is no formal presentation or Q&A session where everyone can hear each question and answer.  Go ahead... ask different representatives the exact same question and get wildly different answers.  This is why utilities hold these kinds of meetings.  They will tell you what they think you want to hear, and not be held accountable for any of it.  The main purpose of the "meeting" is to introduce preliminary route maps to the impacted community and receive feedback that could help guide the final route that PSEG files for approval of the Maryland Public Service Commission.

This preliminary route map is floating around social media.
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Not a lot of detail, but it's a damn sight better than PJM's initial map as far as determining where they expect this project to go.  At the open house meeting next month, PSEG will have the detailed aerial maps that you want to see.  The maps may present numerous short route segments that can be pieced together to create a route.  They may ask what you think of them.  Most people will reject routes that impact them, and may be tempted to champion routes that do not.  But, throwing your neighbor under the bus to save yourself is never a good strategy.  The community must come together to oppose ANY of these routes.  If data centers need new electricity supplies, they need to build new power generators near the data centers, instead of plowing through communities that won't receive any benefit.  

The MPRP will likely need new rights-of-way 150-200 feet wide for its 500kV transmission line.  The company will ask landowners to sign easements for a one-time "fair market value" payment for just the land in the easement.  This gives PSEG the right to use your land, but you will still own it and pay taxes on it.  The easement payments are compensation for land you can no longer use, they are not a windfall or profit.

The MPRP website is chock full of propaganda and small bits of information that impacted landowners need to really investigate.  For instance, the website says:
​The MPRP is a 500,000-volt (500 kV) transmission line designed to respond to growing electric needs in Maryland and the surrounding region. Transmission reliability is key to supporting Maryland’s energy future.
They don't tell you that the project is only necessary because of enormous new data center load.  If we didn't build the data centers, or if we built new electric generation near the data centers, this transmission line would not be necessary.   It's not for you, it's for data centers.  This project also has NOTHING to do with clean energy.  It will actually increase carbon emissions in neighboring states that will have to produce more power using fossil fuels in order to import it to new data centers in Maryland and Virginia.

​Here's another:
  • Will PSEG want access to my property before I agree to grant an easement for the project?
  • ​PSEG may request prior access to conduct preliminary work such as a survey, delineate wetlands and/or conduct an appraisal to determine the amount of land needed and the value of an easement. In that case, the land owner will be asked to sign a right of entry document allowing PSEG onto the property for only these limited purposes.
State law allows utilities to access property for limited survey purposes before easements are signed.  However, PSEG wants landowners to sign a document permitting all sorts of surveying and testing, including things that may harm your property, like core drilling.  Think twice about signing this document and giving PSEG unfettered access to do whatever it wants on your property before they have paid you a dime.  Maryland law already gives them access for surveying that doesn't harm your property.  You don't need to sign any document or give them further permissions.

I also didn't notice the words "eminent domain" on MPRP's website, but that's exactly how they intend to acquire land from unwilling landowners.  Easement offers are nothing more than coercion... sign and take the money... or else.  When there's no opportunity to say no, it's not voluntary land acquisition.

PSEG's website, its open house meetings, and its permission forms and easement agreements are written in the company's best interest, not yours!

The best use of PSEG's open house meeting will be the opportunity it gives you to meet new folks who are similarly affected by this project and to exchange contact information and hold further meetings among yourselves to share information of interest to landowners who want to defend themselves against this transmission project.  PSEG is not from here, it doesn't know your community, and at the end of the day it doesn't care what happens to it.  They can't see it from their house in New Jersey!

It's time to circle the wagons, Frederick County!  Later this year, PSEG may file an application with the Maryland Public Service Commission.  When that happens, you have the right to intervene and become a party to the case that can submit testimony and cross-examine utility witnesses with the goal of convincing the MPSC to deny a permit for this project.  There will also be public hearings held by MPSC where you can speak out against it.

Meanwhile, get engaged and stay current on project news.  Talk to your neighbors and others in the community who may be impacted.  Make a plan. Maybe I'll see you at the open house...
15 Comments

Propaganda at work

6/21/2024

0 Comments

 
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Lots of new transmission projects in the PJM region due to PJM's Window 3 that needs to import electricity into Baltimore and Northern Virginia due to the closing of the Brandon Shores and Wagner coal-fired power plants, and the building of new data centers in Northern Virginia and Frederick County, Maryland.  They have been in the works for over a year, but are just now being rolled out to the public, and they are sprouting like weeds!

Do you think that the utilities could respect the impacted communities and just tell them the truth without varnish and propaganda?  Do they think we're all idiots who can be easily led to love our own destruction?

Introducing.... "Good Energy At Work" on BGE's "Good Energy In Progress" website.  Couldn't the PR team agree on what the "good energy" was doing?  Branding fail!!!

What kind of corporate hubris compels BGE to believe it can avoid all community opposition with such a simple branding effort?

What is "good energy?"  And furthermore, what is "bad energy," and how shall we make a comparison?  Good vs. bad... the sheeple will pick "good" every time, right?  Except it's just too damned simple, unlike the community that will be impacted.  It's supposed to make you love these transmission projects without digging any further than knowing that they are "good" because the utility tells you so.  Sorry, BGE, when the impacts from these projects begin to happen in the impacted communities, the people will feel like they've been lied to.  What's good about transmission construction?  It's a major project that will severely impact all abutters to the existing easements.  Construction noise, workers coming and going to (and within) the easement.  Large equipment being brought in, and trampling everything in its path.  Helicopters and cranes.  Whup, whup, whup, beep, beep, beep, *kablam* (if explosive splicing is employed).  Is such a simple word as "good" going to blot all that out?

Bad energy must be the existing transmission system that the community has grown used to and spends little energy contemplating.  Bad energy is using electricity from a local coal-fired power plant.

So, good energy must be community impacts from new transmission meant to supply electricity from another source.  What source is that?  It's not being produced in Maryland.  It's coming from Pennsylvania's fleet of gas, coal and nuclear power plants.

How is dirty energy produced in Maryland bad, when dirty energy produced in Pennsylvania and imported to Maryland over expensive and invasive new transmission lines is good?  That's right, your new "good energy" is going to cost you more, and it's no cleaner than the electricity you were using before.

Good?  I suppose it's all in the propaganda used to lead the sheep to believe these new transmission projects are somehow "good" for them.  It probably won't work.

It is so simple, it's insulting.  They're treating the impacted communities like toddlers.  But it's not like it's the first time a transmission company tried to pull the wool over the eyes of the impacted community with silly branding slogans.  Not too long ago, a transmission company in the Midwest tried something similar with the branding slogan "Positive Energy."  It failed, in a hilarious way.  This one will, too.

I wonder how much ratepayer money was tossed to a PR company to come up with such a silly proposal?  And what's next in the "good" department?
0 Comments

Landowners Are Not a Problem That Needs Solving

6/16/2024

0 Comments

 
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Academics who have never had a transmission line proposed across their property are at it again, writing their idiotic "reports" that claim to find the reason why transmission projects draw opposition and are not successful.  I've seen many versions of this "save the transmission world" report, and exactly none of them have gotten it right.  I think it's because they are inherently biased to think that transmission is "good" and "desperately needed."  They believe, deep down in their highly educated souls, that impacted landowners are simply speed bumps on the road to transmission "progress" and that they can figure out new ways to make landowners either acquiesce, or advocate for new transmission to cross their properties.  It's nothing but a psy op.

Nobody likes new transmission across their property.  NOBODY!  Anyone who said transmission was a great idea is either not affected, or their advocacy is being purchased with favorable treatment and ego-stroking (and cash helps, too!).

This new report (see "How Grid Projects Get Stuck" at the bottom of the page) makes conclusions about why the Grain Belt Express stalled out for so long and thinks it has now been successful.  Complete lack of accuracy!  GBE is in as much trouble now as it's ever been.  It's got its corporate head shoved too far up the Biden administration's rear end, hoping for government favors to pull itself out of the dumpster.  How much of our tax dollars will the federal government waste on a project that has never been needed?

And, speaking of need, the researchers did not seem to understand what they were told about lack of need for GBE, no matter how much people tried to educate them.  GBE, as a merchant transmission project, has not been found needed by regional transmission organizations for reliability, public policy, or economic reasons. If it had any of those benefits and its cost was less than the benefits it offered, a RTO would have ordered the project.  No RTO ordered GBE because there was no need for it, not because they are biased against outsiders.  If it's not found needed by an RTO, it is not needed.  Everyone (but the researchers) understands that.  GBE was a speculative venture, a value proposition that never could find any customers who thought it provided enough value to sign a contract.  When a project is not needed by a regional transmission planner, and it can't find any customers that think it's an economic value, then it's a completely unnecessary project.  It is like McDonald's eyeing your front yard -- GBE wants to take your front yard so it can build a transmission project for one simple reason -- PROFIT.  Not because it's needed, or because it provides economic value.  Incumbent utilities may be for profit, but they are also public utilities with an obligation to serve.  GBE is not a public utility.  GBE is only trying to create profit, not serve consumers who need electricity.

The researchers honed in on the disrespectful way Clean Line treated landowners, even mentioning the "Marketing to Mayberry" episode.  Skelly gets faulted for his approach to local governments and elected officials before landowners were even notified.  That pretty much set the tone, didn't it?  How different things might have turned out if Skelly approached landowners first and actually paid attention to their desire for the project to be sited along transportation corridors and buried.  It would be operating right now, if it had attracted customers.  Instead, Skelly and then Invenergy, just kept dumping hundreds of millions of dollars into a plan that was badly conceived from the beginning.  GBE didn't listen to landowners.

The things the researchers think GBE did wrong ultimately don't mean anything though because they picked up on the wrong things, things that wouldn't have made a difference in the long run.
  • Regulatory institutions are stacked against new players.
  • Public and regulators' understandings of public interest and public need enable parochialism. 
  • This case highlights a fundamental mismatch between the scale of costs and benefits for long-haul transmission infrastructure. 
  • The traditional model of community engagement, centered around mass meetings and evaluation of alternatives, failed to satisfy either the developer or the community. 
  • Community members are aware of alternative process models and technologies, and they anchor their judgments to their knowledge of these alternatives.
  • Public opinion favors incumbent entities and processes.​
What?  Poor, poor, rich little Michael Skelly.  Everyone was against him!  As they should have been!  He was only interested in plundering for profit.  Landowners have no use for him, and sent him packing back to Houston.  And did our slick willie friend learn anything from his failure?  I doubt it, judging from this article about his new company trying to build a transmission line through Montana.  SSDD.  You can almost smell the failure wafting its way from that article,

State regulators have a duty to consider the public impacts of new transmission.  That's not parochialism, that's doing their job.  State regulators don't work for merchant transmission companies, or electric consumers in other states.  They only work for the public in their jurisdiction.

Projects without benefits will never be accepted by impacted landowners.  Even projects with some supposed benefit for "the public" don't matter when it's your home and your money on the line.

Yes, the utility model of keeping the public uninformed until the project and its routes are set in stone is unhelpful.  Transmission developers that operate in secret fail in public.  But what's the alternative?  Would developers approach communities and ask them upfront what kind of project they should build?  That is unlikely because the whole public engagement process is built on an enormous misconception.  Developers (and researchers) believe that if they can only "educate" (propagandize) impacted communities, that they can turn opposition into support.  That is NEVER going to happen.  Nobody wants a transmission line. NOBODY.  Self preservation is always stronger than bullshit.

The road to success is staring transmission developers, big green transmission advocates, and their government flunkies right in the face.  It's a transmission project that does not need any new land.  No new land, no eminent domain, no impacts, no opposition.

First of all, we should build new power generation near the power load.  When new transmission is needed, it must be routed on existing linear easements, such as road, rail, or underwater.  Building a gigantic network of transmission lines for the sole purpose of connecting wind and solar projects to load in distant cities, and trying to use transmission to make up for the intermittent nature of these unreliable sources of electricity is not going to save them.  Remote wind and solar is an infeasible money pit.  The only thing it's been successful at is making the rich richer.

Landowners who don't want new transmission lines on their property are not a "problem" to be solved.
0 Comments

More Media Propaganda

1/17/2024

1 Comment

 
You just can't trust the media these days.  Instead of impartially reporting the news anymore, many major media outlets are engaged in pushing the propaganda of energy companies and political goals.  Case in point:  This article about a solar farm in Michigan.

The "victim" in this article is a landowner who needed money and decided to lease her ground to a solar company.  Neighbors objected to the solar farm so local zoning got changed and the project was blocked.  Isn't that democracy at work?  The needs of the many trump the needs of the few.  Local governments have become ground zero for land use issues, and the voters drive acceptance or rejection.  But for some reason, the media presented the story to make the voters the bad guys and the few the "good guy."  Of course this isn't how democracy works, but somehow this anti-democratic rhetoric was championed in the name of "clean energy."  That is, the government should be allowed to dismiss the concerns of the voters if it's about a clean energy project.  There, the few rule supreme.  This is about huge multi-national corporations making money building things we may or may not need in our own communities.  We no longer have a voice in our local affairs.  The article touts policies in several states where state level government can overrule local government and direct land use in the locality.  Is this a good idea?  The article tries to make you think so, but if you extrapolate this out to things like data centers, Walmarts, and polluting factories, the supporters of state rule suddenly think it's not a good idea.  It's hypocrisy, plain and simple.

We are constantly told that rural areas must make a sacrifice to create and transmit "clean energy" for urban areas that don't want to put that stuff in their own community because... you guessed it... their voters object to that use of remaining open space.  How about a little empathy?  If you don't want it in your backyard, we don't want it in ours, either.  Urban areas are not "more special" where they can push energy impacts off onto less fortunate and politically-connected communities in order to save themselves.  This is the rich and politically powerful enslaving the rest of the country... so they can live well in their own communities and not give "those people" another thought.  Some of them tell themselves that "those people" like being their slaves and that they should be congratulated for giving "those people" an opportunity to "be heard."  What good is "being heard" when nobody listens?  Giving "those people" an opportunity to shout into an empty well before you run them over is not democracy.

When did our energy system stop becoming democratic?  It never actually was.  It was designed for benefit of corporations, and those corporations are still the ones who benefit.  Pretending that "everyone else" loves clean energy and transmission when it is sited on someone else's property, is not democracy, it's corporate-fueled mob rule.  And somehow rural property owners protecting the land that produces their income are the demons, the NIMBYs.

NIMBY stands for "Not In My Back Yard."  NIMBY is name-calling at its most basic level.  Calling opponents "NIMBYs" does not deal with their arguments in a logical way, it simply directs the reader to dismiss the NIMBY altogether and not listen to his arguments because they must be "selfish."  Who's the real selfish person here?  The person trying to protect himself from invasion, or the person doing the invading in order to protect himself from a similar invasion?  Corporations who stand to make big bucks exploiting rural landowners are quick with the NIMBY label.  They also try to shut down any NIMBY arguments by claiming they are "misinformation."  And they further demonize the NIMBYs by falsely claiming that they are organized and funded by corporations and mysterious "national organizations."  All this adds up to censorship of "those people" by turning them into unacceptable groups who are so extreme that they should not be allowed to speak out or object in any way to the invasion.

Case in point:  This article demonizing NIMBYs.  The author is a real jerk, pretending he's Mr. Science and is somehow figuring out NIMBY motivation.  Poor fella, he has no idea what motivates "NIMBYs" and never will until he actually becomes one himself.  You cannot truly know how another man feels until you walk a mile in his shoes.

He also doesn't get the reason why thousands of unaffected "YIMBYs" don't show up to shout down the NIMBYs, acting as his own personal army.  First of all, use of the term "YIMBY" -- YIMBY stands for "Yes In My Back Yard."  None of the proposed YIMBYs even have a back yard of their own if they're the proposed young and clueless climate protestors.  They are not accepting any sacrifice for themselves, just demanding that others make a sacrifice for them. YIMBY is not the proper word here.  Paid protestor is more apt.  It doesn't take a lifelong study of human nature to realize it is harder to whip up support for something than it is to whip up opposition.  The supporter simply doesn't care enough to go out of their way to support someone else's project.  However, the objector whose property and way of life is threatened will go to great lengths to protect himself.  The only way corporations have been successful in creating supporters is with good, old fashioned cash.  Paid advocates, whether they are handed cash, free dinners, or business favors, will go out of their way to provide support if the price is right.  They will also spread any misinformation they are handed.  They are part of national organizations.
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Despite all the biased media, we've yet to see rural landowners bow down to their wannabe urban masters.  Who do they think they're convincing with this hogwash?
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    About the Author

    Keryn Newman blogs here at StopPATH WV about energy issues, transmission policy, misguided regulation, our greedy energy companies and their corporate spin.
    In 2008, AEP & Allegheny Energy's PATH joint venture used their transmission line routing etch-a-sketch to draw a 765kV line across the street from her house. Oooops! And the rest is history.

    About
    StopPATH Blog

    StopPATH Blog began as a forum for information and opinion about the PATH transmission project.  The PATH project was abandoned in 2012, however, this blog was not.

    StopPATH Blog continues to bring you energy policy news and opinion from a consumer's point of view.  If it's sometimes snarky and oftentimes irreverent, just remember that the truth isn't pretty.  People come here because they want the truth, instead of the usual dreadful lies this industry continues to tell itself.  If you keep reading, I'll keep writing.


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