Category Archives: Georgia Power

Climate Rally and EPA Hearings next week in Atlanta

High noon rally Tuesday and 9AM to 8PM hearings Monday and Tuesday 29-30 July 2014 at the Sam Nunn Atlanta Federal Center, Main Tower Bridge Conference Area, Conference Room B, 61 Forsyth Street, SW, Atlanta, GA. Plus you can comment online, maybe about mercury from coal Plant Scherer in the Alapaha River and how shifting to “natural” gas just promotes more fracked methane pipelines like that Sabal Trail boondoggle. EPA could take a second step on methane, and we can get on with faster, cheaper, cleaner, and far more environmentally beneficial solar power in the sunny southeast. For details see the Sierra Club or WWALS or SpectraBusters postings.

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New place, new member, new officers, new name? @ VLCIA 2014-07-15

Six years in the making! Finally VLCIA meets in its new office near the hospital. Georgia Power VP Terri Lupo was just appointed to VLCIA by the Lowndes County Commission (without ever showing up and speaking). On this VLCIA agenda is the annually expected officer nominating committee report. Plus “Proposed VLCIA Name Change”. How about SolarTown?

Hm, this move uptown leaves their old building to Sabal Trail and its proposed fracked methane pipeline. Has VLCIA ever developed an opinion on that boondoggle?

Here’s the agenda. Continue reading →

Thousands of solar jobs a thousand miles north of here: SolarCity buys Silevo

An Economic Development Council in snowy Buffalo has landed a solar manufacturer with suddenly even deeper pockets, while our Industrial Authority didn’t even meet this month. Maybe instead of supporting an unnecessary fracked methane pipeline that diverts resources we could get on with real solar industry here in sunny south Georgia?

WIVB.com wrote yesterday, Purchase of company coming to Buffalo could be boon for WNY,

Silevo, a company that had planned to set up shop at Buffalo’s Riverbend site, has been bought out by SolarCity, and the plan could mean thousands of jobs for Western New York.

Silevo is Continue reading →

Simon Solar Farm ribbon cutting in Social Circle, Georgia

A ribbon cutting for 30+ MW of solar power in Social Circle, Georgia, with no media coverage, other than a Georgia Power docket update buried at GA PSC. Claudia Musleve Collier says she made this first quote from email to her, and wants it shared.

Bryan Casey, with Greenavations Power sent me these photos of the recent [13 May 2014] ribbon cutting of their 38 MW solar project in middle Georgia[, Simon Solar in Social Circle]. PSC “Bubba” McDonald was present to flip the switch!

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Energy Policy Act of 2005 considered harmful

The same Energy Policy Act of 2005 that subsidized dirty oil and fracked methane including LNG exports also funded that oxymoron “clean” coal such as Southern Company’s Plant Ratcliffe in Mississippi, ethanol production lining the pockets of Monsanto, and the $8.3 billion loan guarantee to Georgia Power for the new nukes at Plant Vogtle.

2005 was a very long time ago in solar PV years: prices are halved, and installed solar power production is up more than ten times and growing exponentially like compound interest. We need to stop throwing money at dirty, water-sucking, centralized baseload 20th century non-solutions and get on with clean 21st century distributed solar and wind power for jobs, for energy independence, and for clean air and water, not to mention less climate change.

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Slight changes at Southern Company @ SO 2014-05-28

Solar car charging station at the Southern Company Stockholder Meeting: that’s new. Other solar changes were detectable, if you knew what to look for, and with hints from SO CEO Tom Fanning and new R&D VP Larry Monroe here are some, while we’re waiting on SO for video and transcript.

Two demonstration solar charging cars were on the lawn outside the breakfast tent: Continue reading →

Southern Company Stockholder Meeting @ SO 2014-05-28

If you owned Southern Company stock on 31 March 2014 (I did), you should have gotten a letter to Stockholders from SO CEO Tom Fanning:

The board of Southern Company You are invited to attend the 2014 Annual Meeting of Stockholders at 10 a.m. ET on Wednesday, May 28, 2014, at The Lodge Conference Center at Callaway Gardens, Pine Mountain, Georgia.

Tom Fanning is a most congenial host, always ready with an answer to any question, as you can see in these videos from the Continue reading →

NRC nuke waste plan failed federal appeal

Why the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is trying to get the public’s confidence in nuclear waste management: NRC lost an appeal in 2012. Southern Company’s new nukes at Plant Vogtle scraped by before this happened, but there’s still no place for nuke waste even from the existing Vogtle 1 and 2 reactors to go. NRC has a revised Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) scheduled to be finished October 2014.

Here’s U.S. DC Circuit Court of Appeals decision No. 11-1045 NY v. NRC 8 June 2012, on the Court’s website and on NIRS’ website.

David Erickson and Mark Anstoetter wrote for Lexology 17 August 2012, NRC suspends issuance of nuclear power plant licenses,

In response to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision to vacate its rule regarding long-term storage of nuclear waste, New York v. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, No. 11-1045 (D.C. Cir. 6/8/12), the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has agreed to suspend Continue reading →

The fragility of centralized energy systems

All thermal power generation requires water for cooling, with nukes so vulnerable no private insurer will cover them anyway and failing frequently in recent heat waves. “Natural” gas is no better than coal or oil for water use; maybe worse because all those pipelines vulnerable to backhoes or corrosion or attack. Even hydro is vulnerable to lack of rainfall. Carbon sequestration doesn’t get good marks, while conservation and efficiency get rave reviews from a study of insurance perspectives on power generation. What’s the one power source this article about insurance risks does not say is fragile in the face of climate change? Hint: look up.

Limiting Liability in the Greenhouse: Insurance Risk-Management Strategies in the Context of Global Climate Change, by Christina Ross, Evan Mills, and Sean B. Hecht, Stanford Environmental Law Journal and the Stanford Journal of International Law, Symposium: on Climate Change Risk, Vol. 26A/43A:251, 2007.

Supply-side energy choices that may be made to reduce the carbon-intensity of energy services have their own distinctive liability characteristics. For example, switching to lower-carbon electricity generation technology based on thermal power plant technology (e.g., by substituting natural gas for coal) results in systems that are still heavily dependent on water resources for cooling. The Electric Power Research Institute has documented considerable risks to traditionally cooled power generation systems as a result of climate change-induced droughts.242 Similarly, “zero-emissions” hydroelectric generating systems are also sensitive to rainfall patterns.

242 Denis Albrecht, Electric Power Research Institute, Presentation: Climate Impact on Water Availability for Electricity Generation (April 11, 2006) (presentation slides associated with the Electric Power Research Institute).

Centralization considered harmful

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Georgia Power wants more new water for Vogtle nukes than Savannah uses @ GA EPD 2014-05-08

Today is the last day to comment to GA EPD about Georgia Power’s demand for more new water for the Plant Vogtle nukes than Savannah uses. As Southern Company CEO Tom Fanning said two years ago, “water, more than air, is the issue of the future”. Comments may be emailed to EPDComments@dnr.state.ga.us with the subject line “Plant Vogtle.” See below for videos of what people said at a recent public hearing.

Mary Landers wrote for SavannahNow.com 7 May 2014, Nukes thirst for Savannah River water, Continue reading →