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In our first piece on the Memphis Energy Burden, we outlined the recent history of energy prices and proposed a program to address the Energy Equity problem, as a way of mitigating excessive energy costs.  This is the next step.

We noted that per-unit energy prices, poverty and the energy efficiency of the housing stock were the major components of the Energy Burden, and made the initial assumption that energy prices, being dictated by TVA contracts, and poverty, being a systemic issue, could not be addressed.

By the time we had considered a massive energy equity program as the immediate solution, we found three things:

• Due to the viciously cyclical nature of poverty, and its relation to energy burden, addressing the equity issue also addresses poverty.
• The scheme as outlined assumes that political will, and the support of the Mayor and a majority of Council members would be required for the Energy Equity scheme.
• We suggested that in the current anti-Trump democratic (small “d”) uprising, the MLK50 anniversary and the pocketbook appeal of the utility burden problem would make this politically possible, via campaign platforms in the 2019 City elections.

The outcome is, given these new assumptions, that direct action to reduce MLGW electricity pricing is now possible.

How electricity prices can be cut.

The TVA sold electricity to MLGW at 7.7 cents per KWh in 2016 (pdf), who sold it on to consumers at 9.4 cents per KWh on average.    These numbers are taken from the MLGW 2016 annual report.    These prices will rise.  The $11.60 fixed MLGW monthly charge is averaged into these costs.

Clean Line Energy of Houston proposed a project to TVA which would bring 3.5 gigawatts (GW) of power to Shelby County.    They proposed spending $2B on the project, including a transfer station at Millington budgeted at $240M.  The price to TVA would have been two cents per KWh.  This project died on the vine when TVA failed to engage.

The average peak MLGW system load was just over 2.5GW in June of 2012, so the Clean Energy supply seems to be approximately right for Memphis’s needs.

Proposal

With the assumption that the political will required to implement the Energy Burden plan has been achieved, the following could happen:

• MLGW provides the required five year’s notice of intent to terminate its TVA supplier contract. However, the MLGW distributor contract with MLGW is coming to an end in 2019 and this notice period may have changed by 2020, when the new City Council will be installed. Some TVA distributors (Nashville) have 10-year termination notice requirements.   Proponents of the scheme might engage with MLGW to ensure that the contract termination notice is not increased in the new agreement.
• MLGW enters into a contract with a reconstituted Clean Line Energy to take the majority of its supply, possibly selling some of it on to neighboring utilities.  By the time MLGW solicits bids for the supply, it might end up being another vendor.
• Clean Line builds the transmission line and a transfer station within City limits, investing $2B.
• Changeover to Clean Line happens after about five years.
• MLGW prices its energy to consumers at the 2 cents it pays to Clean Line plus its existing markup of 1.7 cents, or less than four cents per unit. That’s a 60% price cut.
• JT Young has just started at MLGW and we don’t know what he thinks.

It’s not quite that simple.

The scenario above is complicated by a few factors.

Spinning Capacity:

Utilities need to have spare capacity ready to throw online at a moment’s notice in order to keep the system stable.

There are several ways this could be done.

• Contract with TVA for spinning capacity at the Allen Gas Plant. TVA would otherwise have to send the output of Allen to Jackson and Nashville to sell it, and transmission is expensive.  MLGW could negotiate for some of this capacity.
• Contract with surrounding utilities to obtain spinning capacity. A swap with cheap Clean Line power might be negotiated into this.
• Utility-size battery storage is available in the megawatt range, ideal for direct current sources and with instant availability.
• Any type of potential energy storage would work. This Irish project at Turlough Hill pumps water into a reservoir at the top of a hill during periods of low demand, and runs the water back down the hill when instant capacity is needed.   Flywheels and almost any method of storing potential energy would work here.
• The Memphis energy demand peak is in summer and during the afternoon, so augmenting supply with solar power would be a good match.
• The energy of the Mississippi could be exploited by in-river turbines.

The foregoing is included because the availability of peak spinning power is always an early objection to this scheme.   We think this is an engineering /costing problem by nature and that good options are available.

System Viability

The average cost of a unit of electricity will be a little higher than the two cents of the Clean Line proposal, as we need to figure that spinning capacity will come at a premium cost per unit.   MLGW will need to invest in or contract for a portfolio of additional sources.    Solar, at the industrial scale, appears to cost about 4 cents per unit.   We’d estimate that if 90% of capacity is 2 cent wind energy and the remaining 10% costs ten cents per unit, the average cost per unit would increase to under three cents per unit, bring consumer prices to about half of current prices, and the 5.1 cents per industrial unit could drop to three cents or less.

The average annual consumer bill would drop from $1381 to about $690, an average savings of around $58 per month.   We think that the extreme cost-savings measures used by poor customers might relax a bit in these circumstances, which would be the same as customers choosing to spend part of the savings on energy.

We find it hard to speculate on the combined effect of the energy efficiency program with the alternate sourcing.   We’d guess that some of the incentive to save energy will go away, but, on the other hand, there might be increased demand for replacement of gas central heating units, water heaters and clothes dryers with electrical units.  The savings would potentially provide an additional source of grant funds (as opposed to loans) to make an energy efficiency program more attractive.   There is an environmental benefit to using less natural gas and more renewable electrical energy.

MLGW could also be allowed to keep some of the initial windfall by phasing in the price cuts and using the savings to upgrade outdated infrastructure and bury some power lines.

Renters will benefit fully from this scheme.

In any event, we don’t think many consumers would reject a 50% cut in electricity rates, even if they were making payments on energy efficiency projects.

Political Considerations.

Changing TVA as the main utility source, because of the notice period the TVA contract requires, is a project that would span at least two City councils and administrations.     We can’t assume that the same political sentiment will exist at the end of the project.

On the other hand, at the end of a four year term, hundreds of millions of dollars worth of contractual obligations would have been delivered and the cost of abandoning the project would be large.

Other results.

Being able to provide industrial electricity in the region of three cents per KWh would make Memphis a very attractive location for various high-energy industries, including corporate data centers and cloud storage, bit coin mining, aluminum smelting, hydrogen production and companies desiring renewable energy.  This brings jobs and economic development, and we would not need PILOTs to make this happen.

The consequences of the city saving a combined $600M annually on energy, of which $250M would be in consumer bill savings, would be considerable and positive.   Project construction and the attraction of low energy prices for industrial development are significant drivers of industrial development.

Risk  Factors

The Clean Line proposal is currently shelved and we don’t know how the company will respond to a Request for Proposal from MLGW.   At the same time, the utilities process will allow other potential suppliers to quote, so the ultimate cost is dependent on a lot of factors.
Direct current transmission is unusual.   It is a natural for solar power, as it is produced as direct current, but wind energy is created as alternating current, so it is converted at both ends of the transmission line.   DC transmission has less energy loss than AC.   It is a mature technology used since the 1930s.

High voltage DC is considered risker than AC from the point of view of safety.   Electrocution injuries and fire hazards are worse with DC.

Conclusion.

Memphis is not married to TVA.  In many ways, despite MLGW being TVA’s largest customer, taking 30% of its capacity, Memphis has always been TVA’s bastard stepchild.   MLGW is obligated in its charter to provide utilities at the lowest practical cost.   It is obligated to review alternative suppliers.

A large part of the problem with TVA is the chilling effect it has on renewable energy generation.   JT Young said, on WKNO’s “Behind the Headlines”, March 30th 2018, that Southern Corp, his former employer,  sells 11% renewable energy.   This compares with about 1% by TVA.   This is a measure of the environmental damage TVA is perpetrating in the Valley.     That alone is good reason for re-examining MLGW’s relationship with TVA.

This information is culled from 119 screen dumps of a Facebook conversation on Whitney Wood’s (now Flaherty) page, over five days in January 2016.   Adam Guerrero dominated this exchange, appearing in over 100 of the screen shots  and, according to other participants, was abusive.    The 119 screen dumps may be downloaded.    They are cross referenced according to the 35 people engaged in the conversation and the 21 categories of abuse flagged in the discussion.

We are almost apologetic for including this material.   It is truly awful, like watching a train wreck, and we present it as an exercise in trolling.

Adam Guerrero tried to make the point that the story of Whitney’s assault is irrelevant, and only he possesses the bravery and friendship with Black people to be able to make relevant comments in a city which is 70% (sic) Black.

Towards the end of the interchange, Stephanie Diane Ford joined the conversation in screen shot 080. Stephanie Diane Ford, until recently, had been AG’s girlfriend, and SmartMule’s business manager.  She recounted a story where three youthful charges of Adam Guerrero assaulted her at Guerrero’s house on 11/11/2015.   Guerrero dissembles and obfuscates.  Finally, starting in screen shot 111, for seven screen clips (until 117), Stephanie added seven screenfuls of information relating to the incident.

The incident involved two Guerrero proteges, JC and ST.   These young men, who were about 19 to 21 years of age at the time of the incidents, were former students of AG from a previous teaching job.   They were part of AG’s entourage.     They had been coming to Adam’s house for almost six years in 2015, which puts the start of their relationship around their tenth grade.

The screen shots provide the story.   Guerrero, JC, ST, and IG, JC’s girlfriend, were in Adam’s house, on the afternoon of 11/11/2015, per screen shot # 113.   Adam left the house leaving the three lounging, partying and packing honey.  Adam met with Stephanie and then they split up, Adam going to a store and Stephanie proceeding to Adam’s house.      IG had been sitting on a sofa with her backpack on the seat beside her.   Stephanie approached, moved IG’s bag to the floor, and sat down beside her.   IG objected to her backpack being moved, and a melee involving all four people broke out, in which Stephanie was slammed into the wall.  The police were called but Stephanie did not press charges and no arrests were made.   Adam Guerrero arrived at the house after the police had departed.

Focusing on two of these screen dumps, we see, #113: in which Adam Guerrero says, as part of a 11/12/2015 Facebook conversation  with  Stephanie and his proteges: “Y’all might be the first case ever of being violent while being high on weed”.

It follows that Adam Guerrero, while in loco parentis, had fallen into the habit of allowing students to lounge in his house unsupervised.  The November 2015 incident happened almost six years after they were his students, but the relationship had continued.

If the young people had been stoned when Adam got back to the house, and they had continuously been in the house since Adam left, in all likelihood they had weed when he left and had been getting high in his house.

Stephanie Diane Ford confirms that the young folks had been smoking a blunt when she arrived.    When I asked her why the police who answered the 911 call did not smell the weed, she replied that she had kept the police outside in the yard.

Adam Guerrero is on record as favoring pot legalization.   When I visited his house in November 2016, I noticed a few pot seeds and stems on his coffee table.  I inquired if he had grown the pot and he denied it.

In conclusion, Adam had been in the habit of allowing young people, students and former students, unsupervised access to his house, and on at least one of these occasions, he knew that the young people were high on weed.   He was their teacher, and “in loco parentis” when he first met these students, and, at the time of the incident, a mentoring relationship existed with the young people by virtue of their job description of “interns” at SmartMule LLC, Guerrero’s private business entity.    When a practicing teacher has an intern, an “in loco parentis” relationship is assumed.

Guerrero was a teacher at Libertas Montessori School at the time of the incident.   It is not known if very young children from the Montessori school had visited his house that year, or if his interns had smoked weed in their presence.   In addition, in our previous SmartMule article, we photographed many very young people working for SmartMule and it is also not known of any of these young people visited the SmartMule business office while weed was present.

Adam Guerrero has been spoken of favorably by many of his students and former students.     We don’t know how much his laissez faire attitude to his “in loco parentis” obligation contributed to his favorable student reviews.    In this Change.org petition, many parents of his Libertas students and SmartMule juvenile associates sang his praises.     Would those parents have been so supportive if they knew about Guerrero’s process for tempting his students into his home, and his attitude to supervision?

Incidentally, our first post on the subject came four days after he was fired from Libertas.  The reason why Libertas fired him was not made public, but we challenge Adam Guerrero to release any documents Libertas gave him as part of his personnel file while firing him.    Our information is that the reasons given for the firing were ample and adequately documented by Libertas management.

Note:   We present these young people via their on-line pseudonyms, and the incident described is now covered by the statute of limitations.    All potential criminal incidents in these texts are moot, either because there was a conviction, or charges were not preferred or because the statute of limitations has expired.   These disclosures were public knowledge before I wrote this.   No snitching is involved.   Everyone involved in this presentation has taken a position for marijuana legalization for persons over 21.

Lagniappe.

The underlying discussion involved Adam Guerrero haranguing  Whitney Flaherty because she was featured as an abuse victim and was not black, like the abuse victims that Guerero had braved Black communities to encounter.    Stephanie Diane Ford proved that Guerrero had been involved in, and failed to prevent or redress, an acknowledged assault on her, a Black woman, while under his protection as a guest in his house.     During his five days of trolling on the issue, he had performed at least a dozen different categories of abuse and engaged in shameless self promotion.

On Friday July 21^st 2017, a group of less than twelve people started assembling in Health Science Park, at around 5 PM.  The park is the location of the grave of Nathan Bedford Forrest, surmounted by an equestrian statue.  The Sons of the Confederacy had been at a meeting in the Mason Hall across Union.

We made a video of the events of that day, at Sons of the Confederacy at Health Science park

The earliest police presence was an unmarked black Suburban parked in a front corner of the Office Depot parking lot.   The occupants of this SUV never got out, and at some point this vehicle departed.  As the Sons’ meeting ended, a couple of hundred Sons straggled across Union and congregated at the Forrest statue.

The story of the event is in the video.   There were about five marked UT police vehicles parked and moving around the park from the beginning.   Gradually, unmarked Suburbans of the MPD TACT unit started arriving, blue lights flashing, until there was a total of nine TACT SUVs, parked on the north side of Union in front of the park.

After reading this ‘The Intercept’ article our theory now includes the possibility that the MPD brass is aware of a large number of KKK and other hate group “Ghost Skin” members in their ranks, and they were afraid that, if the Sons of the Confederacy had resorted to armed violence, that the MPD supremacists might join in the slaughter.   This is the subject of ongoing investigations, by us and by others.

TACT officers turned up at, at least, two previous political events this year.  Two vehicles with five officers were at the MLK celebration on February 4^th and two vehicles with four officers at the May 1 Immigration March.   We assume that TACT also attended the Valero protest on January 15^th but have been unable to confirm this.  The mustering of the entire on-shift TACT complement on July 21^st is, as far as we know, unprecedented.

All the TACT vehicles are black Suburbans, no visible police gear except for half-moon hubcaps. The vehicles have very dark window tinting, so you can’t see the occupants.  When the TACT unit is deployed, one TACT officer stays with the vehicle at all times, probably because they have full-automatic weapons, explosives and other gear stored inside.  As there are usually two officers per vehicle, that means it takes as many vehicles as deployible TACT officers, hence the nine seen at the Sons of Confederacy event, which was probably the entire on-duty TACT unit, about 18 soldiers. The MPD TACT unit includes one major and two lieutenants.

At MLK march, 4/4/2017 (snipers deployed from one of these vehicles, which had a three man crew) Shelby civilian tag  number Z49-55J and one other unidentified TACT vehicle with alloy rims rather than the half-moon hubcaps seen on all the other Suburbans.

At the Immigration March, 5/1/2017 Shelby civilian tag  number Z49-27J and one other unidentified TACT vehicle, with four officers.

At the Sons of Confederacy event, Health Science Park, 7/21/2017 Shelby civilian tag  numbers: Z49-27J, C85-34S, 136-NLT, 420-VWC, 0F4-3W5, 1960-GA and three unidentified others, where TACT uniformed police were seen enter or leaving the vehicles.

153-SYI is the tag number of the surveillance vehicle in the Office Depot lot.   We did not see the occupants of this vehicle and they may belong to some other undercover unit.

If the deployment of the entire TACT force at Health Sciences Park suggests that MPD is doubtful  of the loyalty of some of their members, this is a concern in future confrontations.   We presume that the TACT members have undergone psychological testing and deeper background investigations and that the MPD brass is more sure that they can count on the actions of this unit.

We are taking steps to obtain additional information and will edit this post when more becomes known.

About nine armored TACT paramilitaries joined the UT cops, and remained until the Sons of the Confederacy members departed, in three coaches parked on the west of the Park.   At this point, the TACT soldiers started leaving, and the first uniformed MPD units arrived, blue lights flashing.   By 6:30, all the TACT guys had departed, leaving about a dozen marked MPD units.

The reason why so many TACT officers were at the event has been the subject of speculation.  If MPD is aware of alt-right “Ghost Skins” in their ranks, we need to know.  Soon. Before lives may be at stake.    Watch this space.