The most troubling part of RICL’s proposed HVDC powerline is the company’s inability to be truthful and forthcoming. The company’s informational meetings were designed to extract information from the landowners and residents. It was not intended to answer our questions and concerns. Consequently the number of questions about the legitimacy of this project has increased. Rather than RICl having open forums with very good dialog, Hans Detweiler has chosen this PR campaign in the newspapers.
If Clean Line Energy has any hope of completing this project, I would suggest they fire Hans Detweiler immediately. His lies and half-truths are only raising concerns from Illinois stakeholders in this project. Yes, residents and landowners around this potential powerline are all stakeholders in this project by Clean Line Energy. The smart thing for Michael Skelly, Jimmy Glotfelty, and RICl to do would be to hold open forums in the communities affected and answer our questions directly, such as;
-
If Excelon is exporting electricity from Northern Illinois to the east, why is this power needed in Illinois?
-
Current electricity is far below the prices stated by Jimmy Glotfelty and Hans Detweiler have stated that are required for this project to be competitive. Why should Illinois residence be required to pay for this higher priced electricity?
-
Hans Detweiler has claimed shoving all this electricity on the Chicagoland market will drive the price down. How? Overpriced is overpriced. $45/MWH cost more than the current $30/MWH.
-
Can this powerline survive without wind energy receiving the Production Tax Credit at $22/MWH?
-
There are currently no windmills in O’Brien County Iowa, strange for supposed “windmill country”. If RICL builds this it would require 160,000 acres of windmills. Is this project and it’s purpose truly realistic?
-
Horizon Wind already has a wind farm to the next county east. Will they be the main benifactor to this tranmission line being built?
-
Does RICL truly have no intention of combining with a wind energy company, like Horizon Wind Energy once this project is completed?
-
The management of Clean Line Energy once ran Horizon Wind Energy of Huston. Have all ties between the management of Clean Line Energy and Horizon Wind Energy been severed?
-
If former Senator Todd Sieben complained and opposed the city of Geneseo placing a windmill near his homeand farm, how can he in good consious support building this powerline for the windmills through 12,000 acres of farmland.
-
Has RICl attempted to negotiate with Ken Hach and Wind on Rails to utilize the right of way he owns on the actual former Rock Island Rail line?
Questions like these and many more are not being answered by RICL. This is forcing us to dig deeper and ask more questions about this company. It’s beginning to look like RICL is the next Enron, a shell company owned by a shell company owned by a company with no physical assets. These hard ball tactics by Rock Island Clean Line towards the landowners and stakeholders is creating large amounts of animosity and poor cooperation when very good adn open dialog is needed from the company.
Scott Thorsen
Prairie Center, Illinois
There are no comments for this entry.