Department of Energy Terminates Taxpayer-Funded Financial Assistance for Grain Belt Expresshttps://www.energy.gov/articles/department-energy-terminates-taxpayer-funded-financial-assistance-grain-belt-expressWASHINGTON— The Department of Energy (DOE) today announced the Loan Programs Office (LPO) has terminated its conditional commitment for the Grain Belt Express Phase 1 project, a high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission line intended to connect wind and solar capacity across Kansas and Missouri. The conditional commitment, which would have provided a taxpayer-funded loan guarantee of up to $4.9 billion dollars, was issued by the Biden administration in November 2024 – one of many conditional commitments that were rushed out the door in the final days of the Biden administration.
After a thorough review of the project’s financials, DOE found that the conditions necessary to issue the guarantee are unlikely to be met and it is not critical for the federal government to have a role in supporting this project. To ensure more responsible stewardship of taxpayer resources, DOE has terminated its conditional commitment.
DOE is conducting a review of every applicant and borrower – including the nearly $100 billion in closed loans and conditional commitments LPO made between Election Day 2024 to Inauguration Day 2025 – to ensure every single taxpayer dollar is being used to advance the best interest of the American people. This ongoing review positions LPO to move forward with a lower risk tolerance in lending practices and an uncompromising focus on expanding access to affordable, reliable and secure energy for the American people.
DOE remains focused on advancing projects that expand American energy dominance and deliver on President Trump’s commitment to lower energy prices for the American people.
OK, wind, solar, and power transmission are at the fringes of my knowledge/understanding, but my start in power electronics was toward the end of Carter's MalAdministration. I think what follows is largely correct, but I welcome being set straight where I am not. With that caveat, let me break down the convolutions boondoggle-abortion this would entail:
Solar power: Solar panels convert light into a current that varies with the light. The voltage depends on the load. To be useful on the normal power grid, the solar power has to be converted to voltage- and frequency-regulated AC. In this project however, the inversion to AC would happen at a later stage, so the output would be regulated high voltage DC.
That regulation entails a loss in efficiency.Wind Power: Bird-chop ... errrr, turbines produce an AC voltage that depends on the speed of the wind. I do not know whether the frequency of this AC voltage varies as well. Because the power transmitted needs to be high voltage DC, the output of the turbine needs to be rectified and regulated.
That rectification and regulation entail a loss in efficiency.Transmission to the grid: Ucky-ducky ... now you have all these bird-choppers and bird-fryers producing regulated high voltage DC. First, why high voltage? There're these laws of physics commonly called Watt's Law and Ohm's law. Watt's Law means that 100 volts at 1 amp and 10 volts at 10 amps are both 100 watts. Ohm's law means that 10 amps transmitted 10 miles will have greater loss than 1 amp transmitted that 10 miles through the same wire. In practical terms, high voltage DC will result in lower losses and a less thick conductor.
The same is true with AC, of course.Back on-topic, the US's (and other nations') power grid is AC. This project would require an additional
(= duplicative) high voltage DC power grid connecting all the bird-choppers and bird-fryers to the power stations that convert the high voltage DC to the voltage- and frequency-regulated AC of the US's power grid. Now you have the inversion which, as usual, entails a loss in efficiency.
Did I mention that there would be losses in efficiency at every stage between the bird-choppers and/or bird-fryers and the US power grid? Did I mention that the necessary transmission network would be massively duplicative? Scarcasm aside, one thing that should be added that the equipment and components necessary for high voltage conversions and transmissions are not cheap or mass-produced.
TL;DR version: this project would have been a massively wasteful, probably foredoomed to failure, boondoggle that would dwarf Solyndra, and possibly exceed California's high speed rail project.
