Someone sent me this article earlier this week.  It tries to pretend that Grain Belt Express has made some sort of regulatory or procedural progress... like it got things *approved*.  But the reality is that the only things GBE recently got was a well-deserved kick in the behind from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and a big nothing from the U.S. Department of Energy.  Big deal.  Must have been a slow news day... or just one ripe for propaganda and fake news.

​Let's go to the DOE thing first.

That's right... zero plus zero is still zero.  GBE is still a big, fat zero.  FAST-41 is supposed to be a government run program that "speeds up" the environmental review for selected projects.  Except, the government getting involved has never sped up anything!  Government slows everything because of its pendulous rules and process.  GBE's Environmental Impact Statement has already been underway for more than a year, and it's already at least 6 months behind schedule.  And there's no end in sight.  How would anyone even know if FAST-41 speeds up the GBE EIS, since it's already behind the non-FAST schedule?  This is just a waste of time and tax dollars, let's move on to FERC.

The article says

Say what?  Did this silly reporter even READ the FERC Order he's reporting on?  I'm thinking no, because no sane person would have read that Order and decided it was favorable to GBE.  What GBE got from FERC was nothing but a scolding.

We've known for quite a while that GBE was going to connect to MISO and AECI in Callaway County at the existing McCreedie subtation and also at a new substation it is sharing with Ranger Power's immense solar farm.  The new substation is called Burns.  Burns will be owned and built by incumbent utility Ameren (however I hear that Ranger Power bought the land and scraped all the topsoil off it before handing it over to Ameren).  Ameren has been ordered to build this substation and connect both Ranger Power and GBE by regional grid operator MISO.  Ameren cannot refuse to build it.   In addition, MISO's studies determined that there needs to be two new 345kV high-voltage transmission lines from the new Burns substation to the existing Montgomery substation (in Montgomery Co.) in order for GBE to connect.  The existing line cannot carry enough power and new ones must be built.  Ameren has also been ordered to build these new transmission lines, although GBE must pay for them.

GBE's interconnection to MISO was subject to a Transmission Connection Agreement between the parties.  The TCA is a pretty standard thing that relies in large part on MISO's filed tariff with FERC.  TCAs can be negotiated somewhat and once they are complete, they are filed with FERC for approval.  Except GBE could not agree with MISO on a number of issues so MISO filed the TCA with FERC unexecuted (unsigned).  FERC approved that unsigned TCA.  GBE had asked FERC to make several changes to the TCA and force MISO to do certain things, and for FERC to make Ameren hurry up and build the new transmission lines that GBE needs to make its connection at Burns.  FERC declined to make any of GBE's suggested changes and told GBE it was not necessary to tell Ameren to hurry up.  GBE got NOTHING it asked for here.  GBE was legally smacked upside the head.  FERC has sided with its regional transmission organization, MISO, on all issues.  This really isn't novel or different.  FERC always sides with its pet RTOs.  GBE is just stupid if it thinks it can challenge MISO and get a different result.  Maybe now Polsky will get a clue about why they "don't hear from them" on all the complaints Invenergy has filed against MISO?

Although the TCA was approved by FERC, it doesn't do anything to make GBE's connection happen faster.  It's still scheduled for, maybe, 2030.  GBE had asked FERC to force MISO to connect some smaller portion of capacity in 2027.  Not happening.

Why is this such an issue for GBE?  Here's a quote from the Order:

That's right, folks!  MISO ordered Ameren to build new transmission lines to be in service in 2028 and 2030 for the purpose of importing wind and solar energy from Iowa to Missouri and Illinois.  These regionally planned lines are cost allocated to all ratepayers in MISO.  This means that the cost to use them is going to be considerably LESS than the bloated $7B merchant transmission Grain Belt Express.  In fact, ratepayers are going to be paying for the new Ameren lines, even if they choose to use GBE instead.  Let's see... renewable energy on new lines you pay for OR renewable energy on the GBE, which costs a lot more, and then you STILL have to pay for the Ameren lines anyhow.  Doesn't take an energy trader to figure out that problem.

The Ameren lines will be cheaper.  Therefore, GBE is in a big hurry to try to get its bloated behemoth online before Ameren gets those lines built.  Looks like that's not going to be possible.

GBE is stripped bare... it's too expensive and obsolete.  Who would want to be a customer?  And, speaking of customers, GBE still does not have negotiated rate authority to try to find any.  No matter though... GBE can't connect its project until at least 2030, when there will be better options for renewable energy transmission service in MISO.

I don't think Grain Belt Express got a lot of love during its Valentine's Day oral argument at the Illinois Fifth District Court of Appeals.  You can (and should!) listen to the Oral Argument for yourself.  It's less than 40 minutes and I liked it so much I listened to it twice.  I wanted to think about and enjoy what I was hearing.  The Court has posted audio of the argument here.  Page down to find the case called "Concerned Citizens and Property Owners vs. Illinois Commerce Commission and then click on the speaker icon on the right side of the page.

Trying to predict how a Court may rule based on Oral Argument is a tricky business.  The judges are rarely obvious about how they feel, but if you listen to their questions you may pick up some clues.  It's not so much who gets more questions, but the nature of the questions and what they reveal about what the judges want to know to help them decide the case.

I do want to say that all the lawyers were well prepared and on top of their game.  At the end, one of the judges tells them so, and that their briefs were all very well done.  However, he didn't stop there.  He called out the brief of appellant attorney Paul Neilan (for Zotos) as particularly well done and informative.  Afterwards, I simply had to read that one for myself and I agree that he did a top notch job explaining things as briefly as possible.  That's often the key... appeals rely heavily on the briefs submitted by the parties to the case.  Judges are not experts on every topic, especially ones as complicated as electric transmission.  Giving them the information they need to decide the case, without adding a bunch of information that is not useful, is the goal.  Transmission is so complicated and layered it's a monumental task indeed.  Neilan is master of the brief!  And several of the questions the judges asked seemed to come right out of his brief. He set the knowledge base and that's a very good place to be at Oral Argument.

The case for the appellants was argued by Chuck Davis from Illinois Farm Bureau and Brian Kalb for the landowners.  The arguments centered on the constitutionality of GBE's special purpose legislation to enable GBE and compel the ICC to approve it (and only it) by usurping the ICC's normal process.  I especially liked Davis's opening statement that Grain Belt Express 2.0 is back after its sale to a new owner that changed Illinois law in an attempt to permit a project that was not successful under its last owner.  The Courts determined that it and sister project Rock Island Clean Line were not a public use.  Grain Belt's "build it and they will come" plan is a cloud on landowner titles and a quest for eminent domain.  GBE would not subject itself to state permitting if it was not seeking eminent domain authority.  The ICC's argument is that GBE is not seeking eminent domain, but that fails because GBE made it clear that it is seeking eminent domain in the letters it sent to landowners.  The new law provides an automatic grant of public use only to GBE and is therefore special purpose legislation for benefit of only one company.

Questions the judges asked:
1.   Is the windfarm in Kansas already built?
2.  If GBE has been sold to Invenergy, has RICL also been sold to them?
3.  Don't the letters to landowners threaten eminent domain?
4.  If the windmills produce alternating current, what's the reason for a transmission line to turn it into direct current, if it could have been transmitted as alternating current?
These questions don't appear to me to be hostile to the landowners.  In fact, they may actually be hostile to GBE.

Landowner attorney Brian Kalb told the Court that the enabling legislation is unconstitutional  special legislation that discriminates in favor of a select group (GBE) without a reasonable basis of equal protection and is arbitrary.  The legislation is bespoke legislation only for Grain Belt Express and the legislative transcripts indicate as much.  The legislation requires the ICC to find it in the public interest if it delivers energy to MISO or PJM.  That is not a determination of public interest.  (Bravo!  That's exactly right!). There is no showing that GBE benefits the citizens of Illinois.

Questions the judges asked:
1.  Didn't the ICC have to make a finding that there was benefit to the citizens of Illinois?
Kalb answered that under the statute that benefit is deemed by fiat and the Commission's role has been usurped as long as GBE connects to MISO or PJM.
The Judge asked if the connection points aren't governed by FERC?
2.  At what point does GBE cross the river?
Again... questions not hostile to landowners position.

Next, Brian Dodds argued the ICC's position that the legislation is constitutional.  He says the landowners challenges fail because they have not shown that some other transmission company has been denied a permit to do something other than what GBE is doing enabled by its special legislation.  He says there is a converter station in Ralls County, Missouri (except there is not... interconnection has been changed to Callaway County and a new 40-mile spur to enable it has been added to GBE... if the ICC attorney doesn't even know where it connects, how accurate is the rest of his information?).

Judge questions:

1.  If the goal of the legislature is 100% clean energy, why limit the legislation to just 9 counties, and why have a time limit on applicable projects? (this was actually never answered in the gush of responding words).
2.  The ICC Order says the transmission project must be fully funded before construction starts.  How can the ICC defer that finding?
3.  Explain the financial benefit for the citizens of Illinois from this project.
4.  Doesn't the benefit rely mainly on price drop and credits and things up in the wind that nobody knows if they will take place in the future or not?
These questions don't seem particularly friendly to GBE.  In fact, they may be hostile questions.

Last attorney was David Streicker for GBE.  He told the Court that even though the legislation requires a finding of public benefit, GBE submitted evidence that it did anyhow.

Judge questions:

1.  How was it determined that GBE lowers costs for Illinois consumers?
2.  Does expert testimony say that our national security is dependent upon a wind farm?
I'm going to leave this up to the reader to decide whether there were hostile questions for GBE.  I think you are probably getting the hang of it by now.

The landowners were allowed to present a brief rebuttal at the end that begins with Brian Kalb.  He said that the ICC and GBE had failed to support their argument that the legislation was simply for clean energy because they didn't explain how the 9 specific counties and the deadline promoted clean energy in general, not just GBE.  It's an opportunity for GBE, but a wall for any other utility.  The ICC makes a finding of the best route for a transmission project, not the legislature.  He is followed by Chuck Davis who makes the point that ICC has set itself up to make a finding of GBE's financial capability all by itself without input of the parties, which is an ex parte no-no.  ICC is required to make its findings with the knowledge and participation of all the parties.  Its Order must be overturned until it does this.  It cannot reserve some determinations to be made without participation at a later date.  He also points out that an ICC certificate is only good for 2 years, but the ICC has given GBE 5 years to to begin its project.

I am greatly encouraged after listening to the Oral Argument.  You should be, too.  The attorneys for Farm Bureau and the landowners did what they needed to do.  They answered all questions posed and made great arguments.  Say a prayer, cross your fingers, hold your breath... and never stop hoping that justice will prevail.

Dear FirstEnergy,

​Right now you are down and out and feeling really crappy....

And when I see how sad you are it sort of makes me.... 

HAPPY!

I have been singing this tune since I read about the latest indictments of former FirstEnergy executives Chatty Chuck Jones and Michael Dowling, along with their paid off regulator Sam Randazzo.

FirstEnergy criminals "on the loose". (Headline has since been changed to something less sensational, but it was fun while it lasted.)

Chatty Chuck and friends finally surrendered and got their mug shots taken.  I wonder if someone will create some fake $2 bills with their mug shots on them?  Maybe the wives can get together and find a way to continue their fortunate lifestyles without these guys? The $2 bills would be the perfect currency for bribing regulators in the future.

Chatty Chuck is no longer smiling.  I bet he's no longer chatty, either.  Why do I call him Chatty Chuck?  It's because of the absurd press he generated back in 2013 when doing a deal to plaster FirstEnergy's name on Cleveland Brown's stadium.  It was one of the biggest PR fails I have ever seen.  (The Browns ditched FirstEnergy after the scandals started).

Chatty Chuck (so named because of his arrogant confidences shared with the reporter) demonstrated his mastery of "the deal" by telling the reporter:

I guess he couldn't figure out how to keep his bribery of the Chairman of the Public Utility Commission of Ohio under wraps.  This is an even more epic fail for Chatty Chuck.

Even more, this is a good look at all the things that go on behind the scenes between regulators and regulated.  Think FirstEnergy is the only utility doing it, or that Ohio is the only place utilities do it?  I'm thinking no.

I guess I'll play that tune again... "CEOs in shackles."  Yes, indeed!  That makes me happy.  Karma is a bitch, Chuck!

Illinois energy attorney Paul Neilan outlined the merchant transmission "benefits" scam in recent comments to the Illinois Power Agency.  Back in January the IPA published its draft 2024 Policy Study and invited comments.

In his comments, Neilan pointed out how IPA's idea of the finances of merchant transmission is wrong.  Government ideas about merchant transmission are almost always wrong.  Nobody seems to understand how it works, so they make things up and pretend they understand.  Because governments don't understand how merchant transmission works and how it differs from regionally planned and cost allocated transmission needed for reliability, merchant transmission developers often have a field day making up need and benefits for their projects to make ignorant regulators believe they somehow provide "public benefit" that will enable eminent domain authority for private profit.

First Neilan takes issue with IPA's claim that merchant transmission makes money through power price arbitrage:

This is something a vast majority of landowners impacted by Grain Belt Express know well.  Why doesn't IPA know this?  GBE doesn't own power generators, and it doesn't sell power.  It only sells transmission.  Sellers and buyers on either end are not supposed to be affiliated with the transmission line.  Therefore, if there was any money to be had buying low at Point A and selling high at Point B, it would not be GBE realizing the income and using it to pay for construction and operation of its transmission line.

Neilan points out that the price difference between seller and buyer must be more than the cost of GBE.  This is the reason GBE doesn't yet have enough customers to finance and build its project.  The price differential between seller and buyer is so small that it doesn't allow the addition of the bloated $7B GBE project and still allow an arbitrage profit.  He attaches a portion of a transcript from the ICC hearing that demonstrates how GBE witnesses dodge and weave when asked questions they would rather not answer because a truthful answer isn't helpful.

Merchant transmission claims of electricity cost reductions are magic math.

In other words, if GBE really reduced power prices for consumers that are not served by its project ("public benefit") it would actually be shooting itself in the foot because it is closing the arbitrage gap between seller and buyer that allows for the price of using GBE to be added in and still allow the seller to make a profit.  GBE wants the seller to sell at a low price, and the buyer to buy at a high price, the higher the better.  A high price would allow the low price of generation plus the cost of GBE to remain lower than the buy price at the other end of the line.  Lower the buy price, and suddenly GBE is not economical.  Knowing this... how many times has GBE lied to regulators, the media, and the people?

The magic math GBE used at the ICC to create $6.6B of savings for electric consumers is a story unto itself.  You should read Neilan's explanation of GBE's non-existent carbon tax and failure to adjust the time value of money.  Geeky topic, easy explanation.

Perhaps IPA's biggest flaw is its presumption that eminent domain is appropriate for merchant transmission projects:

That strikes at one of my biggest pet peeves about merchant transmission -- considering it a public use.  In order to be a public use, it must provide public benefit.  A merchant transmission project only provides benefit to its signed customers (assuming they actually found some benefit from using the line).  There is no public benefit.  Merchant transmission companies (and their enabling state utility commissioners) attempt to *create* a public benefit with claims of lower power prices for everyone.  Missouri even went so far as to claim that because GBE signed a contract to sell its private service to a municipal power agency, that somehow transferred the public benefit provided by the power agency to GBE and allowed GBE to wield the power of eminent domain.  It's a ridiculous interpretation of the law.  Merchant transmission owners sell transmission service to willing buyers at the highest price it can negotiate.  Merchant projects are not necessary for reliability, economics, or public policy.  They are simply a private profit scheme laid on top of our current electric transmission system.  They should have to negotiate easements in the same kind of market where they negotiate their contracts with companies who purchase their capacity -- a free market with a willing buyer and a willing seller.  Merchant transmission should never be granted eminent domain authority.  We need to fix that.

Hopefully Neilan can straighten out the IPA's screwy thinking.  It's a vital first step!

Regional utility FirstEnergy announced on Friday that it was abandoning its  interim 2030 climate goal.

And why is that, exactly?  Well, here's as close to the truth as FirstEnergy wants to get:

The climate goal has been eliminated because FirstEnergy cannot reduce emissions at its Fort Martin and Harrison coal-fired power plants in West Virginia.  And why did FirstEnergy think it could reduce emissions in 2020, only to backpedal less than 4 years later and abandon its interim goal?  What changed in late 2023?  What are the PJM "resource adequacy" and "state energy policy initiatives" that made FirstEnergy abandon its 2030 goal?

​This!

PJM's new transmission project designed to help import 7,500 MW of energy to Loudoun County Virginia's "Data Center Alley."  Virginia keeps approving new data centers and local utilities do not have enough electricity available to power them.  PJM designed a new long-distance extension cord that plugs the data centers into new sources of power beginning at the 502 Junction substation in southwestern Pennsylvania.  

Of course, substations do not generate electricity.  They serve as traffic circles to direct energy in different directions via high-voltage transmission lines.  PJM's new transmission snarl, err I meant to say MARL (MidAtlantic Resiliency Link), begins at 502 Junction substation and ends at the new Aspen substation in Data Center Alley.  But what generation sources are connected to 502 Junction that can be directed to Data Center Alley?  I'll give you two guesses...

That's right... the two generators at which FirstEnergy can no longer reduce emissions are directly connected to 502 Junction.

The red lines on the map are existing 500kV transmission lines that connect Harrison and Ft. Martin directly to 502 Junction.  The new MARL project will take it from there, right to data centers in Loudoun County.

This is the reason FirstEnergy has abandoned its 2030 interim greenhouse gas goal.  In late 2023, PJM approved MARL.  PJM approved the project due to 7500 MW of new data center load and the retirement of 11,000 MW of fossil fuel generation in its eastern region.  Resource adequacy and state energy policy initiatives at work.

So, what does this mean?  It means that instead of reducing the greenhouse gas spewed into the West Virginia air from FirstEnergy's Ft. Martin and Harrison power stations, FirstEnergy is going to be increasing their carbon emissions.  All for benefit of No. Va.'s data centers and the selfish and destructive state energy policies of Virginia and its neighbors.

Northern Virginians who keep approving data centers despite knowing there is no way to power them without imports from West Virginia are directly responsible *COMPLICIT* in increased air pollution, health and environmental impacts caused by continued mining and burning of coal in West Virginia.

Why is this okay?

Don't turn away from this.  OWN IT.  Don't blame your elected officials or throw up your hands in despair.  Make your elected officials OWN IT.  Make them publicly say that it's okay to increase carbon emissions to power the data centers they approve.  Of course they won't.  FirstEnergy has just handed you a sledgehammer to stop data center sprawl.  Use it.

Every time you turn on a light switch in Northern Virginia, you are increasing carbon emissions.  That's right... the coal-fired power from West Virginia won't just power the data centers... it will power all of Northern Virginia.  Give your climate guilt a great big hug, it's going to be your constant companion for years.

PJM's new transmission plans to power data centers in Northern Virginia are going to increase carbon emissions.  End of story.

Virginia has a problem with data centers.  It created tax exemptions to draw them in.  Northern Virginia is situated near a bloated federal government that needs a place to store all its data.  And "data center alley" was born.  It has since reached outlandish proportions, and more data centers are being approved every day.  Data center sprawl is a serious problem.

Perhaps the biggest problem for the largest concentration of data centers in the world is powering them all.  Data centers use huge amounts of electricity, and as new technology created more ways for data centers to burn electricity, it soon became impossible to power them with the electricity available.  Couple this with state "clean energy" policy that prohibits the building of any new fossil fuel generation, and you've created a recipe for disaster.

This disaster recently manifested as PJM's 2022 Window 3 transmission plan.  Regional grid operator and planner PJM Interconnection was tasked with finding a solution to the closing of 11,000 MW of existing fossil fuel generation in Virginia and Maryland combined with 7,500 MW of new data center load in Northern Virginia.  PJM did the only thing it knows how to do... create new electric extension cords across the region that will import electricity to data center alley from fossil fuel generators in other states.  The only two states in PJM that export electricity are Pennsylvania and West Virginia, where coal is still king.  Pennsylvania produces electricity mainly from natural gas and nuclear, with a significant amount of coal still in its mix.  West Virginia's electricity mix is over 90% coal.

The new extension cords are 3 new 500kV transmission lines pumping electricity to data center alley from Pennsylvania and West Virginia.  It's bad enough that the new extension cords will plow through communities in other states, expanding transmission easements and cutting new ones, but PJM also expects electric customers in other states to pay for a significant share of the cost of these new extension cords.  What do Pennsylvania and West Virginia get from this?  New transmission lines, property destruction and devaluation.  They don't get any electricity... that's all going to Northern Virginia.

When approving this destructive (and unlikely to actually happen) transmission plan, PJM selected the cost allocation scheme that spreads the costs of the projects as widely as possible across its region.  The thinking there is that spreading the $6B cost among as many people as possible won't be noticed by individual electric consumers.  If PJM allocated the costs solely to the causers of the new transmission lines (the state of Virginia) then the rate increases they cause will be very noticeable.  In fact, it may be so noticeable that businesses and residents may begin to leave Virginia for neighboring states where electricity is more affordable.

PJM is complicit with the State of Virginia to cover up its data center disaster by inflicting new transmission on other states instead of the state that caused it.  Sure, Virginia is being allocated a huge chunk, but not all.  Another huge chunk is still being spread among all PJM consumers as far away as Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, New Jersey, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, Maryland, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.  This is because PJM selected the cost allocation scheme that allocates 50% of the cost of the new projects to everyone in the region based on their peak load percentage from the prior year.  An area that uses a lot of electricity gets a bigger share, for instance electric customers in Northern Illinois are paying a larger share of this 50% than electric customers in Virginia that will actually use the electricity piped in on the new extension cords.  Why is anyone in any state other than Virginia paying for this new data center transmission?

The other 50% of the costs are allocated based on cost causation, with load areas at or near the data centers paying a higher percentage.  However, the load areas near the data center are enormous.  The Dominion zone where the data centers are being built also consists of customers in all parts of Virginia, plus some in North Carolina.  The Allegheny Power zone contains customers at/near the data centers, but it also spreads to cover a huge chunk of West Virginia and Pennsylvania.  Why are consumers hundreds of miles from the data centers paying so much money to build extension cords for Virginia's new data centers?  This isn't fair.

PJM's cost allocation schemes are part of its FERC-approved tariff.  However, PJM must receive FERC approval for each individual collection of transmission projects to ensure they have chosen the correct cost allocation scheme for the projects.  PJM filed to spread the costs across the region back in January, which opened a 30-day comment period.

While lots of entities intervened in the FERC docket for this cost allocation, only 3 comments were received.  That's right... only 3 entities thought this was unfair.  Two of them are residential ratepayers, and the other is the Maryland Office of People's Counsel.

I filed these comments.  I asked FERC to open an investigation into the justness and reasonableness of PJM's cost allocation and took the position that the "clean energy" policies of Virginia and Maryland caused the retirement of 11,000 MW of baseload generation in their states.  Also, only Virginia is responsible for the 7,500 MW of new data center load.  West Virginians should not be paying for these new transmission lines.  Being the "power house" for the electric supply for Virginia's data centers ties West Virginia into many more years of coal-fired electricity production.  Even if West Virginia wanted to close those old, dirty plants, they cannot because Virginia needs the power for their data centers.

Pennsylvania electric consumer Barron Shaw filed these comments.  Barron's comments are similar and underscore the way Pennsylvania and West Virginia are being used to power some of the wealthiest companies in the world.  People in Pennsylvania and West Virginia get little to no benefit from these companies or their new extension cords and will actually end up paying higher power prices in their own states as all the "cheap" electricity is sucked out of their own states to power a wealthier economy in Northern Virginia.  It's basic supply/demand.  Plenty of power makes cheap electricity prices.  When so much power is exported that electricity becomes scarce, prices rise.

Those two comments are probably understandable to the average reader.  However, the Maryland Office of People's Counsel also filed comments and expert testimony purporting that PJM picked the wrong allocation scheme and should have used the one that allocates all the costs to the state responsible.  PJM's other cost allocation scheme is called the "State Agreement Approach" and is used when a state agrees to shoulder the entire cost of transmission made necessary by its public policies.  SAA has been used for New Jersey's offshore wind planning.  PJM planned new transmission to support NJ offshore wind, and NJ agreed to pay for it.  Maryland OPC believes PJM must break down the suite of transmission projects to determine which ones are for other reasons, and which ones are for the data centers.  Once this breakdown is made, Virginia should be charged for the entirety of the data center portion.  Maryland's filing is probably a hard read if you don't speak FERC though, so read at your own risk.  It may seem like you're reading a foreign language.

Now it's up to FERC to decide... should electric consumers in other states be charged for Virginia's data center extension cords?  Maybe if Virginia had to shoulder the entire cost of its data center debacle it would have to realize that approving a whole bunch of new data centers comes at a cost.  Outrageous electricity prices in Virginia are the consequence of out-of-control development.  PJM is helping Virginia avoid the true cost of its policies and shuffling costs off onto other states that had no part in approving the data centers and certainly will not see any benefit from them.  PJM also selected new transmission projects that put most of the burden on other states.  PJM could have selected the proposal that kept new transmission lines in Virginia by connecting to AEP's 765kV transmission system west of Richmond.  But it did not.  PJM is complicit in Virginia's irresponsible energy policies and therefore responsible for the energy crisis that is the logical result of continued data center development.  Why, PJM, why?  

PJM won't be successful in getting all these new transmission lines built in other states, and certainly not by their projected "need" dates in 2027.  What then?  Will the lights go out?  PJM made the wrong choice and we're all going to have to pay.

That was the sentiment expressed by one Missouri farmer about signing an easement for Grain Belt Express under threat of condemnation and taking of an easement across his land by Chicago-based energy conglomerate Invenergy.  The same sentiment also applies to cooperating with biased liberal media journalists from back East.  You can cheerfully cooperate and welcome these people to your home and business and hope that they are guided by professionalism and decency to tell your story accurately, or you can refuse to talk to them and be labeled as a selfish, renewable-hating deplorable in abstentia.

The people of rural Missouri are some of the most welcoming, thoughtful, and brave folks that I have ever met.  Even when their gut told them that a reporter from The New Yorker was probably going to do a hit piece, they warmly welcomed him and cooperated anyway.  They didn't deserve this.

Here's the filter through which the reporter viewed his entire Midwestern experience:

This was the reporter's preconceived notion going into this article.  Nothing anyone said or did, or anything he saw, felt, or experienced, was allowed to interfere with this pre-determined outcome.

​What do you mean, "of course"?  That's the reporter's bias.  The two main characters he visited for this story obviously did not agree.  It's all about perspective... safety risks from GBE are guaranteed and immediate for the people who will have to live and work around it for the rest of their lives.  Climate change is a political  theory espoused by people like the reporter, who don't have to live and work around a dangerous invader every day.  GBE won't be outside his kitchen window every morning, and he won't have to drive huge farm machinery around giant impediments on his land numerous times every year.  GBE will not be personally affecting him so he is content to belittle its impacts on others in favor of his own armchair scientist theories.  The risk to Missouri farmers is REAL.  The risk to the reporter is a watered down possibility.  Get off your high horse, buddy, assuming you've ever even been on a horse, of course.

The article drones on about how wind and solar energy has not been successfully deployed, and that it will require enormous sacrifice to ever work as a dependable source of electricity.  Instead of contemplating, perhaps,  whether wind and solar is not a realistic future energy source because it isn't progressing, the reporter  doubles down on a bad idea by believing transmission lines like Grain Belt Express can be the turning point to success.  It can't.  Wind and solar are not the answer for our energy future.  It's too expensive, too invasive, and unreliable.  It's actually making our entire electric system incredibly fragile.  We need to abandon this bad idea in favor of new technology that can produce the energy we need where we need it when we need it.  I haven't heard any talk that we need enormous amounts of new transmission for new-age nuclear generators.  Wind and solar is an experiment that didn't work, but it made a lot of investors very rich and they don't want to let go of their golden goose, even if it is for the betterment of society.

The reporter's portrayal of Loren Sprouse and Marilyn O'Bannon as "holdouts" against a "better grid" is unfair.  Both Loren and Marilyn have selflessly devoted themselves to careful and deliberate examination of the issue and spent their personal time and money standing up for the rights of farmers.  They did the right thing. 

The reporter fails to mention that Loren is a knowledgeable electrical engineer and preferred to portray him as an uneducated rural farmer.  When Loren worries about GBE's interference with GPS, he's basing it on REAL studies and, more importantly, real experience using GPS systems to farm.  As if Loren's educated concerns can be alleviated altogether because the reporter managed to find a Canadian study that said there was no problem.  Neither the reporter or the Canadian study author will be in the cab with Loren when his GPS system is scrambled or temporarily disabled.

When Loren says that GBE could have been designed better, he's expressing an educated opinion.  Numerous other HVDC transmission lines have been proposed and built underground on existing road/rail rights-of-way.  Choosing to reject that and instead swallow a great, big mouthful of Invenergy's excuses for not burying its line demonstrates the reporter's bias and ignorance.  Grain Belt Express was planned more than a decade ago based on a bad idea for cheap, overhead lines across private property.  GBE has poured millions of dollars down the drain trying to force its cheap, overhead project on private landowners over the last 15 years.  At any time it could have stopped and investigated whether there was a better way to do things.  But it did not.  Perhaps if GBE had stopped throwing good money after bad 10 years ago, it could have used all the money it wasted on lawyers, lawsuits, environmental studies, experts, land acquisition, and buying advocacy to bury its line on existing rights-of-way instead.  Perhaps if it had, GBE would be built and in operation right now.

Instead, it's barely limping along a road so lengthy it cannot see the end.  GBE doesn't have county assents in Missouri, its Illinois permit is being appealed, it has not announced enough customers to pay for the line (and in fact doesn't even have permission to negotiate with customers), it has not secured its financing, it doesn't have all the land it needs, its interconnection has been delayed 3 years, and it's now facing competition from new transmission planned to be built by regional grid operator MISO.

Marilyn O'Bannon is one of the nicest, most thoughtful ladies I've ever met.  But she's not a pushover.  This brave lady didn't just complain when GBE showed up in Missouri, she stood up and fought for everyone.  She was instrumental in forming a landowner group, fully participating at every opportunity, and she pushed herself to leave no stone unturned in her quest for justice.  She went on to become a popular county commissioner, taking on a leadership role when people needed her most.

It doesn't matter what she was wearing, or what she was driving, or what various characters in the story ate for that matter.  The part about the Escalade was touching... but he forgot to mention that Marilyn intended to take him around the farm in a pick up, the vehicle of choice for just such an adventure.  However, when they got outside, they found all the pick ups were in use around the farm doing actual farm work.  She could have sent him packing, or cancelled the tour.  But instead, she took her 6-year old Escalade, used to go to town, not putter around the farm.  And for that, she gets slyly attacked, like she has no right to own or drive such a car while opposing GBE's invasion of her farm.  What  is she allowed to drive to become a sympathetic character in this story?  A totally inappropriate (and much more expensive) electric coupe?  The reporter, who may or many not even own a car of his own, had no idea why a farmer may have more than one vehicle, each for a different purpose. 

I found the focus on Marilyn's outfit downright creepy.  Five-pointed stars on her shirt?  What does that even mean?  Who cares?  The trucker's hat on the counter... was he sad it wasn't on her head to complete his irrational attack on her character?  I'd bet that reporter would covet just such a cap if a filthy rich corporation came to take his land, or his family's land, for its own profit.  Nobody knows what eminent domain feels like until it happens to them.  It's a devastating punch to the gut, not a slogan used to make ad hominem attacks on people unlucky enough to experience it.

The quotes attributed to Marilyn regarding climate change are manufactured, she claims.  Marilyn shared that she was recently contacted by a New Yorker "fact checker" to make sure the quotes in the story were correct.  Although she said they were not, it didn't matter.  They stayed in the story.  That's all we need to know to dismiss this article as a pre-planned hit piece.

At the end of the day though, nobody in rural Missouri reads The New Yorker.  It doesn't matter to them or their battle how they are perceived by eastern city dwellers.  What does matter is that Marilyn, Loren, and others graciously hosted a stranger and told their story honestly.  That the reporter couldn't accept it because it didn't fit with his pre-determined agenda is all on him.  Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  It's a good way to live.

What does "collaboration" mean?

NextEra, one of the utilities assigned to build PJM's coal-fired transmission extension cord from West Virginia to the data centers has been bandying that word about, but I don't think they know what it actually means.  If they actually do know what the word means, then they must be intentionally rebuffing concerned citizens while pretending they are "collaborating."  Either way, it's disingenuous.  And it will be the root cause of future project delay... and ultimate failure.

MidAtlantic Resiliency Link partner NextEra has begun its "collaboration" with a shell of a website.  The website says:

The website includes a form at the bottom if you "have questions."  This seems to be the only avenue for a concerned citizen to begin "collaborating" with NextEra.

​So, I did.

This is what I'm talking about. 

It's a conceptual point-to-point connection from coal-fired generators to data centers that has not been subject to the "routing" lens.  You can see a bigger version here on slide 41.  When routed directly from generator to load, this line does not cross Jefferson County, WV and does not require a new 500kV transmission line across Loudoun County.  So, is it even being considered?  Yes or No?

NextEra's reply sounded like it was written by a Magic 8 Ball.

MARL Team members?  How many were crowded around the keyboard typing that reply?

Yes or no?  Can I get an answer here?  I tried again:

And here's the reply from "the Team."

Is that a yes?  I don't think so.  If the answer was simply "yes" then none of that other stuff was necessary.  So, this must mean the answer is actually "no"?  But our slippery "Team" can't actually "collaborate" with anyone to answer a very simple and basic question.  How is any "collaboration" happening when inquiries are met with total nonsense and local communities are being rebuffed from participating in the routing process?  

So, I tried one last time to appeal to "the Team's" strategic thinking (such as it may be):

Well, I guess I must have hurt "Team's" fee-fees because I haven't heard from them at all this week.

I guess I'm going to have to "collaborate" with myself to answer my own questions.  No big deal, I've been doing this for more than 15 years now.

Who are the “stakeholders” if they are not local communities, regulators and landowners?

Perhaps they are greedy elected officials, lobbyists, the data centers, other corporations with tons of money, astroturf front groups, hired advocates, environmental and other special interest groups whose agenda can be directed with generous donations, and other entities nowhere near the proposed route.  Why would any of these "stakeholders" have an interest in the route of the project?  It's not going to be in their backyard.  In fact, they may only be "stakeholders" in order to make sure it doesn't end up impacting any of their own interests and, instead, impacts yours.

What are the technical specifications of the project?

I think the technical specifications of the project are to connect over 10,000MW of coal-fired electric generators in the Ohio Valley to data center alley via a new 500kV electric transmission project.  Of course, this has no correlation to routing... the project could go anywhere and still make the connection.  But it's supposed to sound official and you're not supposed to question a statement like this because you're supposed to be dumb.

​What are the economic needs of the project?

This one is easy!  Let's refer to PJM's Constructability and Financial Analysis Report for this project.  NextEra bid that it could complete MARL for $683.5M.  PJM's analysis of project cost put the project more in the neighborhood of $1.2B, a 30% increase.  But, hang onto your wallet... NextEra included a contingency budget of 14%.  NextEra also offered some cost control promises.  NextEra's Return on Equity is capped at 9.8%.  Its equity share is capped at 45%.  These numbers are important because the ROE is the amount of interest NextEra earns on the capital costs of MARL for the next 40 years while we slowly pay them back for the project (think mortgage, or car loan, where you finance a big purchase over time).  NextEra can only contribute 45% of project costs that will earn that 9.8% ROE, the other 55% of project costs will have to be debt, which we repay at its own interest rate.  NextEra offered a "soft cap" on its expenditures that promises any expenses that exceed the estimate earn no return at all -- 0%.  However, regardless of any of these provisions, NextEra's earnings cannot be lower than 7 or 7.5%.  Then NextEra promised a schedule guarantee that the project would be completed by its June 2027 deadline.  For each month the project is delayed past then, NextEra's ROE falls 2.5 basis points, with a maximum drop of 30 points.  What is a basis point?  100 of them make up 1 percent of the ROE.  Therefore, a 9.8% ROE contains 980 basis points.  

Wow, we're just going to be saving buckets of money here!  Or maybe not.  Anyhow, all this is relevant to know that NextEra must control its costs.  It cannot make any routing changes that increase its costs such as different routes, different structures, different land acquisition.  NextEra is also sensitive to staying on schedule.  If "collaborating" with you delays things, then your opinion doesn't matter.

What are the “regional reliability needs” criteria of the route?

This is pretty nonsensical.  Regional reliability needs are rooted in technical specifications and inservice date.  The "Team" is just repeating itself and trying to make it sound like something different.

Yesterday, I was reading a news article about MARL and I ran across the same ridiculous phrases that populated. my own email exchange with "the Team."  Maybe "the Team" is nothing more than an automated robot choosing from a list of approved phrases to respond to inquiries that are used by many big companies.  If so, is it programmed to "collaborate" or simply to pretend?

Do you trust NextEra?  I don't.  NextEra can't answer a simple question.  Much of what they said is meaningless gibberish.  Trust is first and foremost and NextEra has already blown it.  Of course, gaining the trust of a public that suspects NextEra wants to take their property and construct a huge transmission line on it is an uphill battle to begin with, but hiding behind "the Team" and refusing to answer a simple question with a straight up answer destroys whatever trust ever might have existed.  Get your information elsewhere.

True "collaboration" on developing a project route means that impacted communities should be participating in the route development and evaluation process.  However, they are not.  Instead, NextEra is developing the route all on its own, using its own criteria, and will only "collaborate" with the community to show them the finished route selections and accept their feedback.  None of the routes are proposed by impacted communities.  Impacted communities are estranged from NextEra's actual routing process.  This isn't "collaboration."  It's route consultation by fait accompli.

And that never works.  Impacted communities want to know what problem is being solved and to be active collaborators in developing the solution.  Keeping them in the dark until the route is selected is not "collaboration."  It's a route developed in a silo.  And it's a recipe for project delay and failure.

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.

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?

As part of the "energy transition" big green, big government, and the electric industry have been promoting an overwhelming need for new high-voltage electric transmission.  The message goes like this:  we need more transmission to move electricity from new renewable energy generators (solar and wind) to big cities that "demand" more renewable energy. 

That message is pure propaganda.

The "energy transition" is squeezing existing fossil fuel generators financially and many are shutting down.  This phenomenon is caused by federal taxpayer-funded subsidies for renewable generators and state/local energy policy that requires your electric company to cut its carbon to zero by a certain date.  Government policy has finally been successful in forcing the closure of fossil fuel electric generators.  Perhaps this is a good idea, environmentally, but it absolutely doesn't work to keep the lights on.

One of the biggest problems is that new renewable generators are not coming online in time to replace closing fossil fuel generators.  Instead, we just have less generation.  The liars point to regional interconnection queues to demonstrate that thousands of megawatts of wind and solar are waiting patiently to connect to the grid, and blame grid operators and utilities for holding up their connection.  Except this is just another lie.  Generators in the queue have not yet been built and may never be.  Vast numbers of generators drop out of the queue before constructing anything, even more now that the government has completely hosed up the supply chain.  

When big, baseload fossil fuel generators close, there is often nothing in the state or locality to replace them.  Regional grid operator PJM Interconnection is struggling to replace over 11,000 MW of closing generation.  The continuing closures keep pushing our electric grid further and further to the edge.  Closure of the last of Maryland's coal-fired electric generators causes widespread grid impacts that can destabilize the grid and cause power outages.  But does Maryland care?  Not really.  Maryland leaves replacing the retiring generation to PJM and other states.  Maryland is an energy parasite.  Maryland's energy policies are causing unreliable electricity for everyone in the region.

PJM is also struggling with a 40% increase in electric demand caused by Virginia's out-of-control approval of new data centers.  Data centers use incredible amounts of electricity that cannot be satisfied with variable forms of renewable energy like wind and solar.  Data centers need 24/7 on-demand electricity, even after dark and on calm days.  The capacity factors for renewables are much lower than fossil fuels.  While fossil fuel generators can stockpile fuel and be prepared to run when needed, renewable generators only run when nature makes their fuel available.  Therefore, you'd need many more renewables than fossil fuel generators to maintain reliable power.  The big lie pretends that if we only build transmission to connect everything then some renewable generator, somewhere, will be producing electricity.  But it won't be producing enough to replace everything else that isn't producing.  Pretending that is so is an unproven fantasy, and one we engage in at our own peril.  The cost of new generation and new transmission to connect it all is also going to make electric bills skyrocket.  The liars say that renewable generation is cheaper than fossil fuel generation, but they don't tell you that's because of government subsidies, and they also don't add in the cost of all that new transmission needed to connect all the renewables.  Unsubsidized remote renewables plus transmission is more expensive than existing fossil fuel generation that relies on existing transmission.  Fact.

This whole lie has been spoon fed to a trusting public for years.  But what happens when the largest grid planner in the country approves a new transmission expansion plan?  Is it connecting renewables to load using new transmission?

NO.

PJM's recently approved transmission plan replaces closing fossil fuel generators, and increases electric supply for new data centers, by connecting these areas with existing fossil fuel generators in other states.  This isn't about the "energy transition"; it's going backwards to increase the use of coal and other fossil fuels from states without impossible clean energy goals.

PJM's MidAtlantic Resiliency Link, or MARL, directly connects the data centers in Northern Virginia to over 10,000 MW of coal-fired generation.  The MARL will enable the export of electricity produced at Ft. Martin (1,100MW), Harrison (2,000MW), Long View (860 MW), Mitchell (1,600 MW), Cardinal (1,800 MW), Sammis (1,700 MW) and Mt. Storm (1,700 MW).  Wind, solar, biomass and hydro in this area add up to less than 10 MW.  It is indisputable that the electricity carried by MARL will be overwhelmingly created by burning coal.

When will the environmental groups and people who will use this new supply of dirty power wake up and object?  Transmission divorced from its source of power is a giant lie.

While Maryland sits around playing "victim" of its dwindling power supply, Virginia is planning a slew of new legislation supposed to make its data center problem "better."  However, none of Virginia's legislation addresses the REAL problem -- the generation of electricity.  Virginia's legislators try to pretend that electricity comes from new transmission lines.