Category Archives: Ethics

Register today for hearing on Great Lakes nuclear waste dump

It’s upstream of much of the U.S. side of the Great Lakes, and you can participate in the hearing without having to go to Canada. It may be a thousand miles from here, but stop one there and maybe stop one here. You wouldn’t want a nuclear waste dump on the Altamaha or Savannah River, would you?

Michael Leonardi wrote for EcoWatch 3 July 2013, Stop the Great Lakes Nuclear Waste Dump,

Surely the question that comes to many is why on Earth would anyone in their right mind consider the shores of Lake Huron for the first permanent nuclear dump in North America? Lake Huron sits to the north of Lakes St. Clair, Erie and Ontario and the water of this lake flows southward and eastward, eventually connecting to the Atlantic Ocean through the St. Lawrence Seaway.

Here’s how to participate in the public hearing, via Burying Nuclear Waste at the Bruce: OPG’s Proposed Deep Geological Repository,

Continue reading →

Georgia Power still too slow on solar in 20 year plan: PSC decides soon

Georgia Power tries to continue whistling in the fossil and nuclear fuel dark while distributed solar power changes the world around it. The Georgia Public Service Commission can decide differently, and will decide next week, 11 July 2013.

Joshua Stewart wrote 2 July 2013, Decision Looms On Georgia Power Plan,

The state Public Service Commission votes next week on Georgia Power’s 20-year plan, the road map for providing electricity to 2.4 million customers. That includes the mix of fuels the company will use and the efforts the company undertakes to get customers to use less energy. This happens every few years. But this time, Georgia Power also wants to retire 16 coal- and oil-fired power-generating units at six power plants.

This happens every few years. But this time, Georgia Power also wants to retire 16 coal- and oil-fired power-generating units at six power plants.

PSC Commissioner Lauren “Bubba” McDonald said at a hearing in April that this version of Georgia Power’s plan “is filled with the most-significant issues” of any Integrated Resources Plan in the last decade.

And Georgia Power avoids actually facing many of those issues:

Continue reading →

Lowndes County takes no responsibility for the pipeline –Bill Slaughter @ LCC 2013-06-25

You’re on your own if that pipeline company wants your property; the county government chooses to stay completely out of it, so said Lowndes County Chairman Bill Slaughter at the 25 June Regular Session of the Lowndes County Commission.

He read a prepared statement about a proposed natural gas pipeline. Why the county couldn’t put it on their website as a press release is mysterious. I’ve added the links:

Lowndes County has been contacted by representatives of McKenna, Long, Aldridge law firm of Atlanta regarding a proposed project expected to impact property owners of Lowndes County. Spectra Energy Company and its subsidiary, Sabal Trail Transmissions LLC anticipates construction of a 465 mile interstate natural gas pipeline from Anniston, Alabama extending through Georgia and coming through Lowndes County, terminating in Orlando, Florida.
This project is for the benefit of and is the responsibility of Florida Power and Light. Lowndes County has been Continue reading →

ADS buys three more waste companies, one in Valdosta

That’s five ADS purchases since Veolia. So much for Steve Edwards not being able to foresee any further acquisitions back in April. Somebody remind me, why was it a good idea for the Lowndes County Commission granting an exclusive franchise to a monopoly that’s only getting bigger, and already had little reason to keep prices down? County Commissioners certainly have not been able to explain it.

Allan Gerlat wrote for Waste Age 2 July 2013, Advanced Disposal Buys Three Waste Haulers,

Advanced Disposal Services Inc. continued its recent buying spree with the acquisition of waste haulers in Pennsylvania, Georgia and Illinois.

The Ponte Vedra, Fla.-based Advanced Disposal said in news releases it purchased Winsor Disposal in Kane Pa.; Valdosta Waste Services in Valdosta, Ga.; and Benson Disposal Services Inc. in Macon, Ill.

Here’s a list of just the ADS purchases I know of, not counting the rumor: Continue reading →

Cobb coal exec prosecution can proceed –Georgia Court of Appeals

Cobb EMC’s former CEO, who pushed coal plants and is charged with a variety of crimes, still can be prosecuted.

Andria Simmons wrote for the AJC Friday, Ruling lets case against ex-Cobb EMC chief proceed,

The Georgia Court of Appeals on Thursday upheld the indictment of the former CEO of Cobb EMC, clearing the way for his prosecution to proceed.

In 2011, former Cobb EMC CEO Dwight Brown was indicted for allegedly operating the utility as for-profit company that benefited its leaders. He was charged with 31 counts including theft, false swearing, conspiracy to defraud the state and racketeering.

So former Gov. Roy Barnes may have briefly gotten Dwight Brown off on a technicality, but that show’s back on the road, two and a half years after it began.

Meanwhile, insurgents won a majority on Cobb EMC’s board and Cobb EMC is Continue reading →

Tipping fees vs. host fees from Veolia

What is this contract involving tipping fees that Lowndes County declined to produce a copy of? How can it be “adequately maintained in the future”, as former Commissioner Lee put it, if the county doesn’t know what it is?

The minutes for the Lowndes County Board of Commissioners Work Session 11 October 2010 say:

Resolution-Proposed Amendment-March 2007 Greater Lowndes Solid Waste Management Plan, County Planner, Jason Davenport, presented the resolution, adding that the amendment was drafted due to a proposed expansion and reconfiguration of the Evergreen landfill. Mr. Davenport added that the amendment had been reviewed by staff, the Regional Commission and the Deep South Solid Waste Authority. Mr. Davenport further stated that Mr. A.J. Rodgers, of Veolia Environmental Services, was present to answer any questions the Commission might have regarding the project. Commissioner Lee stated that he was concerned that the contractual relationship that has been in place for quite some time be accurately reflected and adequately maintained in the future. Commissioner Lee then asked Mr. Rodgers if a new cell had been created yet. Mr. Rodgers answered that construction had begun in a cell that had already been approved.

Veolia spelled his name [Andrew] AJ Rogers and identified him as “area manager for Veolia ES Solid Waste Southeast, Inc.” in a 22 March 2011 press release.

But what is this “contractual relationship”? According to a letter from Walter G. Elliott, Lowndes County Attorney, Continue reading →

Lowndes County says it doesn’t know who’s on a board to which it appoints members

If you were a county government appointing members to an Authority, wouldn’t you know who the other members were, and what that Authority does? Lowndes County doesn’t seem to know those things about Deep South Solid Waste Authority (SWA).

Here’s the open records request from Brett Huntley of 7 June 2013:

Deep South Solid Waste Authority (SWA)
– List of members of the board, officers, and staff of SWA, who appointed each, and their terms of office
– Charter, bylaws, resolutions, and any other SWA organizational documents
– Agendas and Minutes for the past five years for SWA, and future meeting schedule
Please provide as much in electronic form as possible.

And here’s the response from Paige Dukes 12 June 2013:

Regarding information related to the Deep South Solid Waste Authority, you may contact Regional Commission Representative, Julia Shewchuk, at 229-333-5277. Lowndes County is not the custodian of the records you have requested.

This is the same SWA for which the county’s adopted GREATER LOWNDES 2030 COMPREHENSIVE PLAN SHORT TERM WORK PROGRAM (STWP) FY 2012 -2016 says:

4.3.1 –Maintain involvement and membership on Deep South Solid Waste Authority (SWA).

Our county government doesn’t know what this SWA is that it’s a member of?

-jsq

If missing docs sunk San Onofre, will Doosan document-forging sink Vogtle and Summer?

If documents can doom the San Onofre nuke and maybe the NRC Chair, how about forged Doosan documents and Plant Vogtle?

Matthew L. Wald wrote yesterday for The Caucus, Tussle Over Nuclear Plant Documents May Sink N.R.C. Appointment,

The botched repair job that doomed a California nuclear plant has created a political whirlpool that may be close to claiming another victim: the chairwoman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The issue is no longer the plant itself, San Onofre, which the majority owner, Southern California Edison, announced on June 7 it would permanently close. The problem now is that Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California, who is chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and a longtime critic of nuclear power, has been seeking documents from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission about Continue reading →

Southern Company only building nukes because they’re not paying, we are –Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Kennedy said he’d be for nukes if they were safe or economical, but they are neither, while solar and wind are both. After calling the pro-nuke movie Pandora’s Promise a hoax, he addressed “safe” by pointing out the movie’s claimed former anti-nuke leaders were never leaders while major nuclear utility executives are indeed now anti-nuke leaders. (For example, I met former TVA Chairman S. David Freeman in DC where he was testifying against nukes.) Then Kennedy tore into Southern Company’s three-legged nuclear boondoggle and pointed out solar and wind are winning even against massive distortions in the economic playing field caused by public service commissions letting regulated utilities make the rest of us pay for their profits on uneconomic nukes.

Andrew Revkin posted on Youtube 19 June 2013, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. & Director of Pandora’s Promise Spar Over Nuclear Power,

The last nuclear power plant constructed in the world was in Finland. It cost about $11 billion a gigawatt. Now I’m involved with construction right now of one of the largest power plants that’s in north America which is in the Mojave Desert, and it’s a solar thermal plant, and it’s costing about $3 billion a gigawatt….
There’s no individual and there’s no merchant utility that will build a nuclear power plant, because they’re so expensive. You can’t make money on it. The only ones who will build them are regulated utilities like the Southern Company in Georgia… because they make money by spending money. They get reimbursed for their capital costs plus 12 or 15% per year. So they’ll construct it once they get approval from the public utility commission. Then they want to spend as much money on their capital costs because they’re not paying for it. You and I are paying for it.
I don’t think Bill Gates, or I saw Paul Allen was one of the funders of this film, that they’re going to spend their own money building one of these [nuclear] plants….
You could make energy by burning prime rib, but why would you take the most expensive way to do it.

And by last fall, the cost per gigawatt of solar photovoltaic (PV) panels was already under $3 billion per gigawatt so distributed solar PV makes just as much sense as massive desert thermal solar, and both make far more economic sense than nuclear. Plus costs of solar PV keep going down, pushing solar deployments up like compound interest, while nukes always take years to build and always cost more than budgeted. Southern Company is the king of nuke cost overruns, going 26 times overbudget per unit on Vogtle 1 and 2 and already 19 months late and about a billion dollarsoverbudget on Vogtle 3 and 4. Then there are the safety issues: a failed nuke can be Chernobyl or Fukushima and many nukes leak radioactive tritium into groundwater and vent radiation into the air, while a failed solar plant is a bunch of glass.

I got into the [solar] industry to show that there was an alternative and that the alternative was economically viable. And not only that, on a level playing field, if we weren’t giving them the subsidies to the incumbents, our technologies would beat them and soundly. They simply couldn’t compete.

He called the movie’s claims that solar and wind don’t work one of the movie’s many big lies because even without a level playing field we already built more solar and wind power in this country last year “than we did all of the incumbents combined”. Plus you’ve got to fuel fossil or nuclear plants, not to mention the toxic waste issues, while once you build solar or wind “it’s free energy forever”. Kennedy also pointed out the electric grid in the U.S. could be rebuilt to deliver solar and wind power as needed for less than has already been spent on breeder reactors that are no longer in use. The filmmaker made no attempt to rebut any of Kennedy’s points about existing solar and wind technologies that already beat nukes, coal, and natural gas, instead going on about pie-in-the-sky modular reactors.

This all illustrates why the Georgia Public Service Commission needs to stop letting Georgia Power and Southern Company suck radioactive profits at the public teat and make them get on with replacing coal with solar instead of letting old coal plant sites sit unused for more than a decade. Oh, and GA PSC needs to halt the Plant Vogtle nuke boondoggle, which is even worse than Southern Company’s Kemper Coal plant in Mississippi as a huge transfer of wealth from the people of the state to a monopoly.

A monopoly that is supposed to be regulated as a public service. By the Public Service Commission whose Commissioners accept massive campaign contributions from employees and law firms of the utilities they regulate. It’s time for GA PSC to bat away the haze of coal smoke and the radioactive taint that surrounds them and go to bat against corruption and for the people of Georgia.