Legalectric

Stop the Lines!!!

National Park Service has extended the deadline for EIS Scoping Comments on the Susquehanna-Roseland transmission project.  WHEW!  Now we have until March 12 to send our comments in!

NPS Home Page for Susquehanna-Roseland Transmission Project

Get your clues on Comments from what they do and do not include:

NPS Internal Scoping Document

It’s in the Pocono Times:

Transmission line public scoping period extended

From the NPS blog:

Posted March 5th, 2010 by Kurt Repanshek

High public interest has prompted the superintendents of Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, the Appalachian National Scenic Trail, and the Middle Delaware National Scenic and Recreational River and National Recreation Water Trail to extend by a week the public comment period on a proposal to run a transmission line across the areas.

The comment period was scheduled to end today, but has been extended through March 12.

“Scoping comments,” those that suggest areas the Park Service should examine in preparing an environmental impact statement, are being taken to help agency managers prepare an EIS on a proposal to replace existing 80-foot transmission towers with larger towers (up to 200 feet high) and add an additional 500 kV transmission line.

Park Service officials say the request would necessitate widening the cleared area and the existing right-of-way and constructing access roads. The proposed expanded line and new towers would impact the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area; the Middle Delaware National Scenic and Recreational River and National Recreation Water Trail; and the Appalachian National Scenic Trail.

The EIS will analyze a reasonable range of alternatives to meet project objectives; evaluate potential issues and impacts to the resources and values of the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, Middle Delaware National Scenic and Recreational River, and the Appalachian National Scenic Trail park units, and identify mitigation measures to lessen the degree or extent of these impacts.

There are numerous ways for the public to provide comments on the public scoping phase of the planning process, including leaving a message on the Park Planning Information Telephone Line (570-426-2491), submitting comments online through a link on the National Park Service Planning, Environment and Public Comment site, http://parkplanning.nps.gov (select Appalachian NST or Delaware Water Gap NRA), or by mailing comments to:

National Park Service
Attention: DEWA PPL EIS Planning Team
Denver Service Center-Planning Division
P.O. Box 25287
Denver, CO 80225-0287

Detailed information about the need for the EIS and the project timeline
can be found on the National Park Service Planning, Environment and Public
Comment site: http://parkplanning.nps.gov.

.

Repeat after me… EASTERN STATES DON’T WANT OUR MIDWEST TRANSMISSION.

Once more with feeling… EASTERN STATES DON’T WANT OUR MIDWEST TRANSMISSION!!!

And they don’t give a rodent’s rump what we do with our transmission but THEY DO NOT WANT TO PAY FOR IT!

It’s not anything new, but it seems that the message is getting through all the way to Iowa.   Soon Minnesota? The message?  That the east coast does not want Midwest transmission, that they have their own renewables and not only that, they know that transmission from the Midwest means coal and, most importantly, THEY WILL NOT PAY FOR TRANSMISSION FOISTED UPON THEM.

The 7th Circuit case tossing out PJM’s cost apportionment scheme must be having an impact because everyone is freakin’ about cost allocation.  Again, GOOD!  The court said that PJM could not shove the costs of transmission on those who do not benefit from it:

Illinois Commerce Commission v. FERC – August 6, 2009

Enter the Coalition for Fair Transmission Policy, just launched today with a press conference in Washington, D.C.

Dig this from their site:

Assessment of National EHV Transmission Grid Overlay Proposals: Cost-Benefit Methodologies and Claims

HA!  I love it when that happens…

Here’s some background on our Midwest Transmission — transmission we don’t need and they don’t want:

JCSP & UMTDI in the news

This opposition to Midwest transmission is nothing new, I’ve entered documentation in the record in a couple of proceedings now, but what is new is that as of today’s “launch,” there’s now an industry group advocating against Midwest transmission, and that’s one utility interest I’m glad to see hopping mad as hell and not going to take it anymore!  GOOD!  Maybe that will help stop this stupid transmission-fest across the Midwest.

PUC Chair David Boyd had it right when he testified before Minnesota’s Legislative Energy Commission and led off with, “We need a business plan.”  Yes, that’s true, there is no business plan, and there is no MARKET for transmission.  I just hope that message gets through before “we” build and WE have to pay for all these wires in the air!

Here are a few recent posts of mine on this, followed by today’s article in the Des Moines Register.

Offshore transmission, NOT transmission from the Midwest

Eastern Governors stand up against transmission!

And today’s Des Moines Register article:

Eastern states balk at paying wind cost

By DAN PILLER • dpiller@dmreg.com • March 5, 2010

Much of the nation isn’t eager to help pay for a high-voltage transmission line to sell Iowa’s extra wind power to big markets east of the Mississippi River.

“If Iowa wants to build a transmission line for their energy, we have no objection. But Iowa or the Midwest should pay for it,” said Ian Bowles, secretary of energy and environmental affairs in Massachusetts. New England states want to produce their own wind energy from offshore farms.

A coalition of utilities in Eastern states will announce today their opposition to a 765-kilovolt transmission line, more than double the capacity of the current 345-kilovolt lines. The line would send electricity from the Dakotas, Iowa and Minnesota to Chicago and points east. Iowa is the nation’s second-largest producer of wind-generated electricity, behind Texas.

Such a transmission line won public support from President Barack Obama on his visit to Newton last April. It is a linchpin of the renewable energy policies of Gov. Chet Culver and Iowa’s largest electric utility, MidAmerican Energy of Des Moines.

Alliant Energy has its objections

Proposals by MidAmerican and ITC Holdings, which runs transmission lines in eastern Iowa, are considered the best chance for Iowa to reap a wind energy version of the financial windfall enjoyed by Texas and other oil- and gas-producing states.

But as wind energy becomes bigger and more corporate, the utility industry is divided even in Iowa.

Alliant Energy, which serves 525,000 customers in parts of northern, eastern and southern Iowa, has joined the newly organized Coalition for Fair Transmission Policy, which promises to fight a government-mandated transmission line from the Midwest.

“We don’t think the costs of transmission should be socialized,” said Alliant spokesman Ryan Stensland. Alliant’s wind energy production in Iowa is a fraction of MidAmerican’s.

Bruce Edelston, executive director for the Coalition for Fair Transmission Policy, said his group has formed to fight a proposal in the Senate to give the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission authority to site and assess costs for a wind transmission line.

“We don’t think it’s necessarily a good idea to build a multistate transmission line,” said Edelston, whose group will hold a coming-out news conference today in Washington, D.C.

The Fair Transmission group represents companies serving 28 percent of U.S. electric customers, including utilities in New York City, Michigan, Indianapolis, New England, Pennsylvania, the Carolinas and Florida, New Jersey and Georgia.

Those states presumably would be among potential markets for the wind-generated electricity moved from the Dakotas, Minnesota and Iowa, which have the potential to produce far more wind energy than would be consumed there.

Other states have their own plans

While Iowa has speckled its countryside with wind turbines, other states have similar aspirations.

Atlantic seaboard states advanced plans for offshore wind farms, which they say would eliminate the need to ship wind-generated electricity from Iowa.
Read the rest of this entry »

Just in from my friends at Concerned River Valley Citizens — as Alan would say, “That’s decorative!”

Inciteful repartee to follow, I need more tea and time!

Demand is down, down, down, though PJM is going to make us wait until March 11 to see the 2009 State of the Market Report for the full year… boooooooo-hisssssssssssssssssss.

But this little snippet did show up in a web update list:

Sent: Thur 02.04.2010 1:01 p.m.
Subject: 2011/2012 Second Incremental Auction Cancelled

Dear Members,

This is to inform PJM Market Participants that the RPM Second Incremental Auction for the 2011/2012 Delivery Year originally scheduled for July 12, 2010 has been cancelled. Through the 2011/2012 Delivery Year, Second Incremental Auctions are conducted only when there is an increase in the RTO’s unforced capacity obligation due to a load forecast increase. As the 2010 RTO peak load forecast for the 2011/2012 Delivery Year is lower than the peak load forecast used in the 2011/2012 Base Residual Auction, the 2011/2012 Second Incremental Auction is cancelled.

Please direct any questions to the RPM Hotline at rpm_hotline@pjm.com.

So the good news is that PJM is now admitting that “the 2010 RTP peak load forecast for the 2011/2012 Delivery Year is lower than the peak load forecast used in the 2011/2012 Base Residual Auction.” The bad news is that with the RPM auction canceled we will not have new numbers for energy efficiency and Semand Side Management, all those things that they are saying cannot possibly do the job that their planned pet transmission projects can.  Funny how that works.  And this is the kind of thing that needs to be very, very public — demand is so far down that it’s lower than their forecast used!  hee hee hee hee

I love it when the market decides!

According to Forbes, parrotting a press release from Monitoring Analytics, the PJM 2009 year end State of the Market Report will be released by Monitoring Analytics on Thursday,  March 11, 2010, with a press briefing at 11:00 a.m. somewhere in Washington.  It will be available on the PJM site some time afterwards.  Monitoring Analytics is the firm that does the report for PJM.   Is Monitoring Analytics a PJM spinoff?

This is one of those reports that I’m really looking forward to…