Category Archives: Activism

Rooftop solar: the most direct route to clean energy industries

Austin vs. San Antonio in solar power Around here I hear local leaders say “we’ll never be Austin.” Well, Austin may be letting San Antonio pass Austin as far as rooftop solar and the jobs that generates. It’s not a matter of size or pre-existing advantages. It’s a matter of political will. Do we have that will here?

TexasVox wrote a white paper in February 2012, Solar Austin: Rooftop Solar & Job Creation,

…the most direct route to attracting and encouraging the development of clean energy industries is through the

the scale of future development will be orders of magnitude greater than what has occurred to date.
mass deployment of local rooftop solar, which is probably why solar has by far the most significant presence of any clean energy generation technology in Austin.

But the paper’s point is that Austin is falling short. Look at the graph: Austin seems to have settled for linear growth in solar power, while San Antonio gets it about compound growth. As San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro said in 2011, solar power is in

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I-75 as the Governor Melvin Ernest Thompson Memorial Highway?

Did you know the legislature is likely to rename much of Interstate 75 through Lowndes County in honor of a former governor, and spend $4,500 for signs to do so?

The Valdosta Daily Times, Lowndes County

NOTICE OF ROAD FACILITY DEDICATION

Notice is given that there will be introduced at the regular 2013 session of the General Assembly of Georgia a resolution sponsored by Senator Tim Golden, 121 State Capitol, Atlanta, Georgia 30334, (404) 656-7580, to dedicate the portion of Interstate 75 in Lowndes County from the West Hill Avenue exit to the North Valdosta Road exit as the Governor Melvin Ernest Thompson Memorial Highway in honor of his achievements, accomplishments, and contributions to Lowndes County and to the State of Georgia; and for other purposes. The estimated cost of such dedication is $4,500.00.

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1/19/13

And such a bill has been introduced in the Georgia House (not the Senate) as HR 47, Governor Melvin Ernest Thompson Memorial Highway; Lowndes County; dedicate, sponsored by (1) Shaw, Jason 176th, (2) Carter, Amy 175th, (3) Black, Ellis 174th, (4) Sharper, Dexter 177th, (5) Houston, Penny 170th.

Here's the part that ties Gov. Thompson to here:

WHEREAS, Governor Thompson was instrumental in the success of the City of Valdosta and Lowndes County, where his leadership as a founding member of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority spearheaded much of the urban development and planning for Valdosta and the surrounding areas, including the Azalea City Industrial Park; and

And establishing Industrial Parks was a cutting-edge idea: in the 1950s.

The bill adds:

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GA SB 51, The Georgia Cogeneration and Distributed Generation Act

Georgia Senator Buddy Carter has introduced a Senate bill for the current session of the legislature, SB 51, “The Georgia Cogeneration and Distributed Generation Act of 2001”. It attempts to fix Georgia’s special solar financing problem, the antique 1973 Territorial Electric Service Act.

Why 2001? Apparently Buddy Carter has been introducing it every year since then. Last year Georgia Power’s disinformation campaign nuked it when it was SB 401. Has the legislature gotten tired of Georgia Power and its parent the Southern Company being way late and overbudget on those new nukes? Does the legislature want Georgia citizens to get the savings and job benefits of the fastest growing energy source in the country? Will GaSU help with SB 51, or only with GaSU’s attempt to become a solar monopoly utility? You can contact your legislators and tell them what you think. Every one of them who voted for Georgia Power’s stealth-tax rate hike for that nuke boondoggle should vote for SB 51 to start getting Georgia on a clean path to jobs and energy independence.

This bill is not perfect: it counts “generator fueled by biomass” as Continue reading →

Rural AIDS: poverty the cause, solar power part of the solution

Director Lisa Biagiotti spent two years travelling around the South interviewing people about AIDS to make a film, deepsouth. She found rural AIDS is a bigger and faster-growing problem than AIDS in center cities, yet most health and prevention funding goes to urban areas. The root cause seemed clear to her: poverty. Here’s some deeper dirt (literally) on rural poverty in the U.S., and one thing we know can help with that: distributed solar power, for jobs, for reduced electrical bills, and for energy independence. What politician wouldn’t want jobs for their constituents?

The director said the screening at VSU at the end of November drew more people than the day before in Little Rock. There were clearly more than 150 in the audience in Valdosta. It’s a topic very relevant to here, as Dean Poling wrote in the VDT 26 November 2012,

Organizers note that Georgia is ranked sixth highest nationally for its cumulative number of AIDS cases reported through December 2009. More than 40,000 known HIV/AIDS cases were reported in Georgia as of 2010.

The South Health District’s 10 counties, which include Lowndes and surrounding counties, report 950 confirmed cases of HIV/AIDS, while many more are likely infected and risk becoming sick because they are not being treated. More specifically, there are about 460 reported cases in Lowndes County.

In reporting these numbers, HIV is the virus (HIV disease) and AIDS is the medical diagnosis made by a doctor of the symptoms, according to South Health District.

It’s a great movie and I highly recommend it. Director Biagiotti spent a substantial amount of her own money and two years to make this film, yet there are aspects she could only note in passing, such as incarceration. She can’t be expected to have researched every aspect; maybe somebody else can step up and help follow more threads.

The movie starts with some maps about poverty and AIDS in the South. It did not, however, look outside the South for poverty. Here are better poverty maps, from the CDC:

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Shutdown at San Onofre: permanent this time?

California only has a couple of nuclear reactor locations (unlike the 32 reactors within 500 miles of here), and one is in even worse shape than the other: San Onofre, almost as bad as Crystal River. I’m sure Southern Company would never cut corners or have design or construction problems at Plant Vogtle, right?

Harvey Wasserman wrote for AlterNet 7 January 2013, Showdown at San Onofre: Why the Nuclear Industry May Be Dealt a Big Blow,

Perched on an ocean cliff between Los Angeles and San Diego, the reactors’ owners cut unconscionable corners in replacing their multi-million-dollar steam generators. According to Russell Hoffman, one of California’s leading experts on San Onofre, inferior metals and major design failures turned what was meant to be an upgrade into an utter fiasco.

Installed by Mitsubishi, the generators simply did not work. When they were shut nearly a year ago, tubes were leaking, banging together and overall rendering further operations impossible.

Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric have unofficially thrown in the towel on Unit 3. But they’re lobbying hard to get at least Unit 2 back up and running. Their technical problems are so serious that they’ve asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to let them run Unit 2 at 70% capacity. In essence, they want to “see what happens” without daring to take the reactor to full power.

The NRC has expressed serious doubts. On December 26 it demanded answers to more than 30 questions about the plant’s technical realities. There have been assertions that unless San Onofre can be shown as operable at full power, its license should be negated.

It’s good the NRC got around to doing something, after Continue reading →

Solar: Pieces of a Puzzle —Dr. Michael G. Noll

Op-ed in the VDT today, responding to a response to my op-ed. -jsq

If the attempt of a guest column from Jan 13 was to shine light on solar power, it left everyone in the dark. Neither mockery nor close mindedness will assist us in finding real answers if we want to solve the energy puzzle of the 21st century.

In July 2012, the Financial Times interviewed Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of GE. GE knows perhaps more about the world of energy business than any other company. Immelt stated that

“on a cost basis it is impossible to justfy investing in nuclar power for the future.”

People who sitll claim that solar is more expensive than nuclear are not paying attention. If solar is viable as far north as New Jersey, it certainly is in Georgia. If countries like Germany can excel in solar energy production, so can we. Companies like Walmart, Costco, Apple, and Google are havily investing in solar because it works.

It should also be noted that the nuclear plant on Crystal River has been idle since 2009. As the Tampa Bay Times reported last December,

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China, etc., mining uranium in Niger and Mali

A commenter on Mali: a French War for Uranium suggested that if "that zone" (presumably the Sahara in Mali and Niger) were such an El Dorado the U.S. and the Chinese would have long been interested. Actually, it turns out numerous countries are involved, especially along the Uranium Highway in the Uranium Province in Niger. Not the Americans so much, but definitely the Chinese.

According to World Information Service on Energy Uranium Project, in Mali, it's the Canadians (Cascade Resources Ltd., Northern Canadian Uranium Inc., Rockgate Capital Corp.) and the Australians (Oklo Uranium Ltd).:

The following companies are performing uranium prospection and/or exploration in Mali: Cascade Resources Ltd. , Northern Canadian Uranium Inc. , Rockgate Capital Corp. , Oklo Uranium Ltd

Faléa uranium/silver project

> View deposit info
Opposition to uranium mining in Faléa: Association des ressortissants et amis de la Commune de Faléa (ARACF)

Pre-Feasibility study on Faléa mine project started: On Nov. 15, 2012, Rockgate Capital Corp. announced the commencement of a Pre-Feasibility study on its Faléa U-Ag-Cu project in south-west Mali. Rockgate has engaged the services of the DRA Group of Johannesburg, South Africa to complete the study.

Environmental and social baseline studies commissioned on Faléa mine project: On April 26, 2010, Rockgate Capital Corp. announced that it has commissioned environmental and social baseline studies on the Faléa Project, Mali.

Apparently Niger has more recoverable Uranium than either the U.S. or Canada; more than Kazakhstan; more than any country except Australia.

In Niger, it's Russia, Korea, India, and here are a few notes about Chinese involvement:

Areva ready to give Chinese access to Imouraren uranium mine: French nuclear giant Areva is ready to open up to a Chinese partner the
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How to get fast Internet service —Susan Crawford

Susan Crawford has a plan for getting us fast Internet access for jobs, community, education, and health care.

Susan Crawford wrote for Wired 2 October 2012, We Can’t All Be in Google’s Kansas: A Plan for Winning the Bandwidth Race, about how the incumbent telephone and cable companies that provide our Internet access aren’t going to help:

They have no incentive to do so. Because they never enter one another’s territories, they don’t face the competition that might spur such expansion.

Instead, incumbent internet access providers such as Comcast and Time Warner (for wired access) and AT&T and Verizon (for complementary wireless access) are in “harvesting” mode. They’re raising average revenue per user through special pricing for planned “specialized services” and usage-based billing, which allows the incumbents to constrain demand. The ecosystem these companies have built is never under stress, because consumers do their best to avoid heavy charges for using more data than they’re supposed to. Where users have no expectation of abundance, there’s no need to build fiber on the wired side of the business or build small cells fed by fiber on the wireless side.

If the current internet access providers that dominate the American telecommunications landscape could get away with it, they’d sell nothing but specialized services and turn internet access into a dirt road.

So what is her plan?

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Captive cable audience —Susan Crawford

Affordable high-speed Internet access would bring us jobs, community, “online commerce and services, the ability to reach world markets, to invent and innovate, to learn and communicate” and “a wealth of economic activity and information” writes Susan Crawford, a very savvy and experienced communications law professor who has been recommended by many as a potential chair of the FCC, who also explains why we aren’t currently getting it.

The Diane Rehm Show 10 January 2013, Susan Crawford: “Captive Audience”, and that’s the title of her book, Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power in the New Gilded Age, excerpted here:

The sea change in policy that led to the current situation has been coordinated over the past twenty years by legions of lobbyists, hired-guneconomists, and credulous regulators. The cable companies have no incentive to upgrade their core network hardware to ensure that advanced fiberconnections are available to every home throughout the country. Communications companies describe globally competitive high-speed access as aluxury, just as the private electricity companies did a century ago.

Yet communications services are now as important as electricity. Today if you asked American mayors what technology they most want for their city, the majority would say, “affordable high-speed Internet access.” And they want these networks not simply for the jobs created to construct them but because the Internet brings the world to their community. High-speed Internet access gives towns and cities online commerce and services, the ability to reach world markets, to invent and innovate, to learn and communicate. It brings a wealth of economic activity and information. But despite these manifold benefits, Americans continue to treat such services as the exclusive domain of private monopolies and as luxuries obtainable only by the wealthy.

Not coincidentally, the United States has fallen from the forefront

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Mali: a French War for Uranium

Google for Mali War in French, and it seems nobody in France is fooled: France is going to war in Mali for oil, gas, gold and… uranium just across the border in Niger. Have you ever heard of a war for sunshine or wind? Let’s get on with solar and wind for energy independence, including from wars for fuels.

Even Le Monde politely asks the question, Pourquoi la France intervient-elle au Mali? Why is France intervening in Mali?

matL : Quels sont les enjeux stratégiques majeurs que présente le Mali, non seulement pour la France mais pour la région entière ? matL : What are the important policy challenges posed by Mali, not only for France but for the entire region?
Les enjeux sur les ressources extractives, à savoir notamment le pétrole et le gaz sur le site de Taoudenni qui se trouve à cheval sur trois pays, Mauritanie, Mali et Algérie. Ensuite, l’uranium puisqu’il en a été découvert dans l’Adar des Iforas. Mais ces trois ressources extractives ne sont pas encore en état d’exploitation. En revanche, le Mali est le troisième producteur d’or sur le continent africain. Ce sont là les enjeux géostragégiques. Issues of extractive resources, notably including oil and gas on the site Taoudenni which straddles three countries, Mauritania, Mali and Algeria. Then, since uranium has been discovered in the Adrar des Iforas. But these three extractive resources are not yet ready to use. However, Mali is the third largest gold producer in Africa. These are the geostratigic issues.
S’il y avait implosion du Mali par la prise du pouvoir central par les groupes armés djihadistes, il y aurait nécessairement des conséquences négatives sur l’ensemble des pays de la sous-région. If there was implosion of Mali by making the central government by armed groups jihadists, there would have negative consequences for all countries in the sub-region.
Visiteur : Bonjour, le gisement d’uranium exploité par Areva se trouve au Niger à quelques centaines de kilomètres à l’est de la zone de combats. Pensez-vous qu’il existe un lien entre l’intervention et la protection éventuelle de cette source d’énergie vitale pour la France ? Caller: Hello, the uranium deposit is operated by Areva in Niger a few hundred kilometers east of the combat zone. Do you think there is a link between the intervention and the possible protection of this vital energy source for France?
En tout cas, l’hypothèse n’est pas du tout à écarter car il y aura des conséquences sur l’ensemble de la sous-région. In any case, the hypothesis is not at all ruled out because there will be an impact on the entire sub-region.

Stéphane Lhomme was more blunt in Le nouvel Observateur yesterday, Guerre au Mali : sécuriser notre approvisionnement en uranium, War in Mali: secure our provisions of uranium,

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