Category Archives: Nuclear

NRC emergency hearing on Spectra AIM fracked methane pipeline past Indian Point nuke

Even the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has finally noticed that Entergy’s Indian Point nuke, already famous for 300x191 Location map, in NRC on Spectra AIM fracked methane pipeline past Indian Point nuke, by Stop the Algonquin Pipeline Expansion (SAPE), 15 July 2015 falsified records, catching fire and leaking oil into the Hudson River, plus being on a fault line, not has Spectra’s Algonquin Incremental Market (AIM) fracked methane pipeline aimed at it. Stop the Algonquin Pipeline Expansion (SAPE), Special meeting of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on AIM Pipeline,

Nuclear Expert Paul Blanch to Present Critical New Information about Dangerous Siting of Spectra AIM Pipeline Next to Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant

Continue reading →

Most of June electric bill for overbudget nuke, yet the sun rises

While electric bills still are tilted against local solar generation 300x225 CWIP on electric bill, in Most of June electric bill for overbudget nuke, by Bret Wagenhorst, 11 June 2015 and Georgia Power continues to levy its stealth CWIP tax for its nuke boondoggle, yet solar power is rising this year on Southern Company and Georgia Power.

Bret Wagenhorst posted on facebook 9 June 2015:

I find it decidedly ironic that a large portion of my last month electric bill went toward paying for a nuclear power plant that is hundreds of millions of dollars over budget, and which will no doubt cost millions of dollars a year to run and to manage its potentially deadly waste. I wonder if the money spent on the nuclear plant were used to purchase rooftop solar panels for all certified energy efficient Georgian homes if we citizens might not be better off in the long run. Thoughts?

Look for Nuclear Construction Cost Recovery Rider on that bill: Continue reading →

Safety Problems at Southern Nuclear Plants Farley and Hatch

Not as obvious as Entergy’s Indian Point fire, Southern Nuclear’s Farley 1 on the Chattahoochee River is down and Hatch 1 and 2 on the Altamaha River have ongoing fire safety problems.

600x345 Southern Nuclear Farley and Hatch Problems, in Nukes Low and Down, by John S. Quarterman, 8 May 2015

NRC Current Event Notification Report for May 8, 2015 says about Farley 1, near Dothan Alabama, on the Chattahoochee River, about 125 miles from here: Continue reading →

Fire at Indian Point nuke fire and shut down next to Spectra-planned fracked methane pipeline


Photo: Ricky Flores/The Journal News

A fire and shut down of Indian Point 3 didn’t even make the front page of the New York Times, and no mention that Spectra Energy wants to build its 42-inch fracked methane Algonquin Incremental Market (AIM) only 1,500 feet from Indian Point. Plus an oil leak, all next to the Hudson River. Meanwhile, Oyster Creek (NJ), Three Mile Island 1 (PA), and Farley (AL) are all down, and numerous fire prevention deficiencies were reported for Hatch 1 and 2 (GA). When did you last hear of a solar leak or explosion?

Matt Spillane, lohud, 10 May 2015, VIDEO: Transformer fire, oil leak at Indian Point Energy Center, Continue reading →

Southern Company Annual Stockholder Meeting @ SO 2015-05-27

Solar power made much of SO’s increased energy revenues for 2013 and 2014. What else will we learn at the Southern Company 2015 Annual Meeting of Shareholders, Wednesday, May 27, 2015? Has Southern Company finally looked up, and will it say, like Thomas Alva Edison in 1931, “I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy”?

To attend the SO shareholder meeting you have to have owned stock by Monday, March 30, 2015, or you’ll need to get somebody to appoint you their proxy. Since I’m an SO stockholder, I got the 216-page Southern Company Notice of 2015 Annual Meeting of Stockholders, Proxy Statement and 2014 Annual Report, page D-8:

In 2014, wholesale revenues increased $329 million, or 17.7%, as compared to the prior year due to a $326 million increase in energy revenues and a $3 million increase in capacity revenues. The increase in energy revenues was primarily related to increased revenue under existing contracts as well as new solar PPAs and requirements contracts primarily at Southern Power, Continue reading →

Solar growth like compound interest has turned Al Gore into an optimist

Not even Al Gore saw that the continually decreasing price of solar power was causing exponential deployment growth that will win within a decade. But now he does. Since solar is going to win, building destructive and hazardous petroleum pipelines for short-term profit for a few executives and investors would be short-sighted at best. Let’s stop those pipelines, LNG export, and fracking, and plug in to sun, wind, and water power for a clean and prosperous future.

Experts predicted in 2000 that wind generated power worldwide would reach 30 gigawatts; by 2010, it was 200 gigawatts, and by last year it reached nearly 370, or more than 12 times higher. Installations of solar power would add one new gigawatt per year by 2010, predictions in 2002 stated. It turned out to be 17 times that by 2010 and 48 times that amount last year.

And you ain’t seen nothing yet: Continue reading →

Minnesota follows Austin with Value of Solar Tariff: better than net metering, or not?

Yes, it’s better than the unequal “net metering” Georgia has now, where your one-and-only utility pays you a rate they determine, typically their “avoided” rate of not generating energy by some other means, which is usually a lot less than what you pay your utility. Is it better than real one-to-one net metering? That’s a harder question, because even if it pays more now, it’s less predictable. In any case VOST has spread from Austin to Minnesota.

Herman K. Trabish, GreenTechMedia, 10 April 2014, A Rising Tension: ‘Value-of-Solar’ Tariff Versus Net Metering,


Source: Institute for Local Self Reliance

The Alliance for Solar Choice, a group made up of Continue reading →

Georgia Power buys 99MW in two Georgia solar projects

Decatur County scores two big solar projects. When will Lowndes County get a move on in solar? How about some projects like this at your empty industrial parks, Valdosta-Lowndes Development Authority? Now that even Southern Company CEO Tom Fanning is bragging about renewable energy, maybe the solar sun is shining enough for other local governments to see it.

Southern Company PR, PRnewsWire, 20 February 2015, Southern Company subsidiary acquires two Georgia solar projects totaling 99 megawatts,

Southern Company subsidiary Southern Power today announced the acquisition of two photovoltaic (PV) solar projects totaling 99 megawatts (MW) in Georgia — the 80-MW Decatur Parkway Solar Project and the 19-MW Decatur County Solar Project — from Tradewind Energy, Inc.

The projects were proposed by Continue reading →

Fixing climate change is profitable

Batteries are just one of many reasons, including electric vehicles, smart grid, solar and wind power (including pass HB 57 and you can profit by getting financing for your own solar panels), plus massive savings on health care and electricity bills; batteries are one of many reasons that fixing climate change will save us all money, clean up our air and water, expand our forests, preserve property rights, and make some people rich:

In fact, a recent report suggests that revenue from the distributed energy storage market — meaning battery packs and other storage devices located directly at homes and businesses (many of which now generate electricity through solar) — could exceed $16.5 billion by 2024. Another report predicts $68 billion in revenue in the same time frame from the grid-scale storage market. This includes large-scale battery packs, hydro-storage systems that use cheap abundant electricity to pump water uphill to drive turbines later on, or even solar thermal systems that store energy as heat in molten salt.

And it’s all happening fast, so fast your jaw will drop if you’re not paying attention. So let’s stop talking about the costs of fixing climate change. It’s not just no-cost and free, not just in the future but right now; we’re all actually going to be better off through fixing climate change: healthier and more prosperous.

Sami Grover wrote Continue reading →

TVA needs to listen to former chair S. David Friedman about solar power

Will you bet on the blinkered money-only policies of the current TVA Chair, or the accurate clean solar future predictions of former TVA Chair S. David Friedman?

Seven years ago S. David Friedman wrote:

“As a substitute for oil, coal, and nuclear energy, the sun can replace the three poisons with inexhaustible fuel.”

The former TVA Chairman wrote that in 2007 his boook Winning Our Energy Independence: An Energy Insider Shows How, which also says (page 4):

There are breakthroughs in new technology that promise to make the cost of solar power as low as that of coal, nuclear, and oil. Almost simultaneously in South Africa and the Silicon Valley in the United States, companies are building huge new solar factories to manufacture a paper-thin solar coating that can generate electricity that could actually lower our electric bills. These breakthroughs promise solar power at 75 percent less than today’s price. Continue reading →