Grain Belt Express
Bert Dirschell
Centertown
Dear Editor:
The following is information on the Grain Belt Express. Hopefully it will be of value when making decisions about the value of the proposed transmission line.
The 780-mile line will start at a “collection” point in southwest Kansas, near Dodge City. It will terminate at a “distribution point” in Clark County, IL, which borders Indiana. It will cross Buchanan, Clinton, Caldwell, Carroll, Charlton, Randolph, Monroe and Ralls counties in Missouri. In order to “sell” the line to Missouri bureaucrats, a “distribution point” has been added near Center, Missouri, in Ralls County. Missouri PSC members decided that the value of the “cheap” Kansas wind farm produced electricity was worth more than the rights of Missouri property owners who will be forced to allow the transmission lines to cross their property.
The vast majority of transmission lines carry AC (alternating current), which is what we use in our homes and businesses. The Grain Belt Express will carry DC (direct current). DC lines are cheaper to construct than AC lines but they require expensive “converter stations” at collection points and distribution points. The most current information I could find, a 2002 article in Electric Power & Light, noted that the cost “break even” length for DC lines requires a line about 300 miles long, to offset the costs of the converter stations. Converter stations are not like the relatively small, cyclone fenced, substations we are used to seeing. They are huge facilities that spread over several acres.
Companies that generate electricity will deliver their AC electricity to the collection point in Kansas. Grain Belt Express will convert it to DC, “load” it into its transmission line and then “offload” it at distribution points, where it will be converted back to AC.
After previously denying permission to build the line, Missouri’s Public Service Commission recently reversed its stand and approved it. Missouri is currently the only state that has approved construction of the line. I could find no information on the actual cost of the “cheap” Kansas wind farm electricity to be “offloaded” at the Center, Missouri distribution station.
More information on the “savings” will be provided in a future LTE.