Legalectric

A little holiday gift for my good friends at NSP/Xcel Energy:

The issues I’m concerned about, at this point, are primarily transmission related:

This should be intense, guaranteed, but fun, eh?

First the state court, though there’s that matter of a HUGE bond, and now federal court.

Here’s the Order:

https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/legaldocs/zgvomrqomvd/rulingLine.pdf

Bottom line:

Given the balance of harms implicated by the parties and the plaintiffs’ likelihood of success on the merits, a narrowly tailored motion for preliminary injunction will be granted with respect to land on or near
federal jurisdictional waters until issuance of this court’s decision on the parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment, which will be fully briefed within a day of the issuance of this order.

From REUTERS (!):

Judge delays construction on parts of $500 mln U.S. power line

Today, starting at 10:30, the Wisconsin PSC meeting is on, and last on the agenda, #15, is the Cardinal-Hickory Creek transmission line. They will be deciding whether they will interfere in judicial review of their C-HC order and make that moot by rescinding the order, and then, whether they will immediately RE-ORDER as the utilities want. Regulatory capture much?

Tune in early, because last time they ran through 40 items in 5-6 minutes!

FULL AGENDA

To listen to meeting (whatever happened to the webcast?) go HERE: https://apps.psc.wi.gov/APPS/eventscalendar/broadcast/livebroadcast.aspx

To check out all the filings in this docket, go HERE! Some very interesting and highly recommended comments were filed over the last month.

If you’re curious or upset that there is no longer video livestreamed, contact PSC Helpdesk at (608) 267-9195 or email at PSCHelpdesk@wisconsin.gov

From a post about 2,100 MW of new transmission:

Developers of 2,100 MW MISO-PJM transmission line choose engineering firm

Let’s think about this a bit. This is a MISO to PJM transmission project. Transmission serves what’s on the line. In MISO, (see above) it’s coal, followed by natural gas, both fossil fuel, and those two followed by nuclear, the most toxic, dangerous, and expensive generation.

Amid all the bluster about climate change, coal generation has ramped up over the last year. Factor to consider — in May of 2020, not much was happening anywhere, so increased generation from then seems likely, to be fair, we need comparison to 2019, BUT, clearly the coal plants are NOT being shut down. And with our transmission build-out over the last 20 years, they can ship and sell it anywhere. What is it going to take to get this fossil generation shut down?

And look at PJM’s mix:

And again, much of the coal in PJM was smaller plants, except for that monster in West Virginia, smaller plants that were too expensive to run, not at all marketable, so they were shut down. MISO is another story, with large coal plants, transmission to get it from any Point A to Point B, and probably the last coal plant to be built, Warren Buffet’s 700MW MEC coal plant, served by the transmission build-out through southern Minnesota and across Iowa.

Why would we need more transmission? WE don’t. THEY DO, it’s a major part of their new business plan. As Lisa Agrimonti so aptly stated in a recent Grid North Partners Conference, it used to be about NERC reliability criteria, “a pretty simple story,” but now, “we need this transmission line to deliver energy more broadly” and it’s a more complicated need story.

Yeah, that’s what they’re wanting to do, for sure!

With the change from reliability to the general “we want it” corporate greed = need, how can a project be challenged?

We’ve seen increased promotion of even more transmission, with claims it’s NEEDED, sorely needed, to reach renewable goals. What utter crap…

We’ve also seen “Grid North Partners” spreading their misinformation, working on making a “CapX 2050” happen.

Do we really need to do this AGAIN?!?!?!

Apparently, they think we do… sigh…

This appeared recently, an article linked to this blurb, and it’s disturbing:

Right… read it and get ready for another decade long fight. I figure I’ve got that long and more, so let’s get to it! Are you ready?

Transition… transmission… transition… transmission…