Duke’s new solar farms in Florida echo what Duke was already doing three and a half years ago when an independent study concluded more solar power in North Carolina would save utility ratepayers tens of millions of dollars annually.
Duke solar power farm in Perry, Florida, courtesy Duke Energy
John Downey, Charlotte Business Journal, 23 October 2013, Study: Solar benefits outweigh costs in NC, Continue reading
The same money would buy a lot more electricity through solar power than that fracked methane pipeline could generate.
Update 2 March 2017: Added tables; fixed some typos.
Ramez Naam, his blog, 21 September 2016,
New Record Low Solar Price in Abu Dhabi — Costs Plunging Faster Than Expected
Back in May 2015, Southern Company CEO Tom Fanning and Georgia Power
CEO Paul Bowers both told me “If we can’t do coal, we have to do pipelines”.
A year in the making, Southern Company bought pipeline company AGL Resources.
Turns out AGL Resources is also an LNG export company,
exporting through Jacksonville by LNG containers on trucks.
And the plot thickens with
the pending corporate takeover
of CSX Railroad by the former CEO of Canadian Pacific,
given that CSX depends a lot on carrying coal, which remember
is what Southern Company is rapidly getting away from.
Could CSX want to carry LNG?
Meanwhile, LNG containers are already rolling
down I-75 and I-10 to Jaxport,
apparently through Atlanta, Macon, Valdosta, and Lake City.
Southern Company PR, 1 July 2016, Southern Company and AGL Resources complete merger, create a leading U.S. energy company, Continue reading
A reminder of why to stop pipeline companies from burying investors’ money in the ground and get on with solar power:
the pipeline that exploded in Texas last week was
half owned by Spectra Energy,
the pipeline company behind
Sabal Trail, AIM, Penneast, and numerous other fracked methane invasions
and behind thirty years of undetected corrosion resulting in leaks, explosions, property damage, and deaths.
The pipeline company didn’t detect it and couldn’t even turn it off quickly.
Want to bet that it,
like Spectra’s Pennsylvania explosion last spring, was corrosion?
A very Texas report said “no people or cattle were injured” and also notice: “The fire is under control and will burn itself out.” Continue reading
Even FPL is doing solar power now, as evidenced by these pictures
John Horton sent back from Daytona yesterday.
So, FPL, how about cancel Sabal Trail and help the sun rise faster on the Sunshine State?
Kelly Pickerel, Solar Power World, 19 February 2016, Three solar canopies complete at Daytona International Speedway, Continue reading
Front page today in the newspaper of record in the largest city in the Suwannee River Basin: the WWALS protest against DAPL and Sabal Trail at the US 84 Withlacoochee River bridge last Saturday, between Quitman and Valdosta, GA.
Desiree Carver, Valdosta Daily Times, Friday, September 23, 2016, front page,
Sabal protests continue,
The WWALS Watershed Coalition stood on the bridge between Brooks and Lowndes County Saturday to show solidarity with Dakota Access Pipeline opponents in Dakota and to continue its battle against the Sabal Trail natural gas pipeline.
That’s the US 84 bridge over the Withlacoochee River, on the Continue reading
17%, 13%, now 0% new electricity needed in Florida, according to FPL?
And the Sabal Trail excuse of coal plant “modernization” has already been
accomplished without Sabal Trail?
While even FPL is now deploying solar power and admits solar “is now significantly influencing FPL’s resource planning”?
So what is the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline boondoggle for, then?
Two years ago I pointed out that FPL’s own projections in its ten-year plans Continue reading
Calling on Austin Scott GA-08 and Sanford Bishop GA-02 and other members of Congerss to also ask the Corps for a Supplementary Environmental Impact Study (SEIS) about Sabal Trail discrepancies. Same story appeared in the Suwannee Democrat yesterday.
Thomas Lynn, Valdosta Daily Times, 17 May 2016,
Yoho hikes Sabal Trail pipeline route,
LIVE OAK. Fin. — US. Rep. Ted Yoho hiked with around 30 opponents to the Sabal Trail pipeline through Suwannee River State Park’s Big Oak Trail in north Florida to look at sinkholes near the proposed route.
The morning hike was a result of Continue reading
Thirty-six years ago, Three Mile Island turned public opinion against nuclear power.
The worst in history, right now still spewing after three months
and Los Angeles County and the state of California have declared emergencies
at Porter Ranch,
is the “natural” gas industry’s Three Mile Island.
Nuclear, too was touted as safe, clean, and infamously “too cheap to meter”. It turned out to be none of those things, and neither is fracked methane. Three Mile Island alone didn’t stop the thousands of nukes President Nixon promised, but it sure helped. The Porter Ranch disaster has already lasted far longer, had worse direct effects, and is in the nation’s second-largest metropolitan area.
Plus TMI was the first U.S. civilian nuclear accident.
The “natural” gas industry has leaks, corrosion, fires, explosions, and now earthquakes monthly and sometimes daily.
Sure, the shadow of nuclear war hung over the nuclear power industry, but the monthly fireballs from methane explosions hangs over the natural gas industry.
The 2010 San Bruno, California explosion is back in the news because, says AP 13 January 2015:
PROSECUTORS: PG&E RESISTED RECORD-KEEPING CHANGE AFTER SAN BRUNO BLAST.
It’s time for a complete moratorium on all new natural gas projects,
like the moratorium on all new nuclear projects after Three Mile Island.
Instead, let’s get on with what we didn’t have back then:
solar and wind power already less expensive than any other sources of power,
far cleaner and safer, much faster to deploy, using no water, and requiring no eminent domain.
In 1962 President John F. Kennedy famously said: Continue reading
Still citing clouds after Georgia has become the fastest-growing solar market in the U.S.,
and ignoring one of its own earlier Florida solar installations,
not to mention its numerous ones in North Carolina,
Duke Energy Florida takes a baby step of a 5 megawatt solar installation in Florida.
Susan Salisbury, Palm Beach Post, 15 October 2015, Duke Energy to construct solar facility in North Florida,
Duke Energy Florida Thursday announced plans to construct a new solar facility in Perry, which is in Taylor County in the Big Bend region.
This will be the second Continue reading