'Green new scam': US kills power line essential to hungry markets
Department of Energy nixed $4.9bn loan guarantee for the Grain Belt Express, alleging it was 'rushed out the door in the final days of the Biden administration'
The US Department of Energy (DoE) scrapped funding for a major power line that would have delivered 2.25GW of wind energy from the Midwest to power hungry markets farther east, the latest volley in the Trump administration’s war on the sector.
Invenergy’s 578-mile (930-km) high voltage direct-current (HVDC) Grain Belt Express is aimed at bringing wind energy from southwestern Kansas plains east to central Missouri.
“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,” the department said.
Consequently, “DoE has terminated its conditional commitment,” it added.
The move is part of DoE’s larger effort to review of “every applicant and borrower – including the nearly $100bn 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.”
Media reports indicate DoE shifted course on the project after Missouri Republican senator Josh Hawley claimed he had persuaded Energy secretary Chris Wright that it was “an elitist land grab harming Missouri farmers and ranchers” and part of Biden’s “green new scam”.
Wind war
It comes as the latest effort by the Trump administration to kill the nation’s wind energy sector that currently supplies some 10% of total demand.
Trump’s Inauguration Day memorandum froze leasing and permitting on federal lands and waters, effectively stilling offshore wind development but with minimal impact on land-based wind, which is almost entirely on private lands.
Passage of the ‘big beautiful’ budget bill (BBB) tightened access for wind developers to critical investment (ITC) and production (PTC) tax credits. Trump’s follow up executive order directed the Treasury Department to further issue guidance aimed at further restricting access.
“New gas and nuclear are on the way and will be critical to meeting demand over the long term,” NextEra CEO John Ketchum said, while “renewables and storage can bridge the gap and will play an important role in an all of the above future.”
Connecting the heartland
The Grain Belt Express would connect three regional grids spanning the nation’s heartland: the Southwest Power Pool (SPP), the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO), and Associated Electric Cooperative Incorporated (AECI).
The second phase would extend Grain Belt Express further east through Illinois to Indiana.
MISO operates one of the world's largest real-time energy markets, with a service territory encompassing the Canadian province of Manitoba, and all or parts of 15 US states.
SPP manages the electric grid and wholesale power market for the central US. It serves all of Kansas and Oklahoma, and portions of 11 other states across the Midwest and Great Plains.