Category Archives: Politics

Fracking: coming soon to a state near you?

Lest you think fracking is something that happens only in faraway places like Alberta or Pennsylvania, look at this map of North American shale gas basins, extending right through the Appalachians from Pennsylvania through West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina into Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi.

Source: Canada fracking creates ‘test tube‘ residents in B.C., Alberta,
by Lynn Herrmann for Digital Journal 5 January 2012.

How long before Georgia Power or Southern Company decide natural gas would be even cheaper if they fracked in Georgia or Alabama or Mississippi? How long until unavoidable human error starts fracking polluting our local groundwater and rivers? For that matter, isn’t it bad enough already that other people’s water is fracked for cheap gas in Georgia?

We could just get on with solar power, which doesn’t spill.

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NRC says it’s “never been a practice” to show licensee documents to the public

After Kendra Ulrich of Friends of the Earth asked about some licensee documents related to last week’s NRC hearing in faraway Maryland on restarting California’s San Onofre nuclear reactor, NRC’s David Beaulieu expanded on NRC’s refusal to divulge the documents.

Here’s the video:

Video by Myla Reson at NRC, Maryland, 18 December 2012.

You can hear him say it’s “never been a practice” to let the public see licensee documents. But if they’re being used in making a license decision, why doesn’t that make them public documents accessible by the public? Oh, right “it’s very complex” but “it’s a yes or no question” and “I will assess”, he says. It’s good to be king!

I wonder if the public had some assurance of transparency maybe the NRC wouldn’t get so many FOIA requests?

Remember, this is the same NRC that gave 100-mile-from-here same-design-as-Fukushima Plant Hatch a 20 year license extension, and the same NRC that gave Plant Vogtle a clean bill of health at a public meeting two days before Unit 1 shut down, and the same NRC that could stop the new nukes there even if the GA PSC won’t.

What if we deployed solar power instead, on budget and on time?

-jsq

Frack human error

What do you get in a solar spill? A sunny day. What do you get in a fracking spill? Polluted groundwater and drinking water. When do you get it? Whenever somebody makes a mistake, which turns out to be frequently.

Alberta Finds Mismanagement of Errors Causes Fracking Water Contamination,

“There is no amount of regulation that can overcome human error,” said Alberta’s Energy Resources Conservation Board (ERCB) spokesman Darin Barter. ERCB released an investigation report that cites inadequate management of risks as one of the main causes of a September 2011 accident that contaminated groundwater with toxic hydraulic fracturing chemicals, including the cancer causing agent known as BTEX (benzene, toulene, ethylbenzene, and xylene).

At least the company involved in this particular incident did something about it:

Personnel from Crew Energy told the Calgary Herald the company is “embarrassed” about the accident. Rob Morgan, chief operating officer for Crew said, “there’s no question of our appreciation of the severity of this,” adding, “pretty much all of the personnel who were involved in this particular circumstance are no longer with the company.”

But the groundwater is still contaminated. And where will they find replacement personnel who will never make mistakes?

Meanwhile, a solar spill is called a nice day.

-jsq

 

Bainbridge beats Valdosta!

Bainbridge City Hall now hums with solar energy, Tristan Baurick wrote for Kitsap Sun 2 August 2012:

City Hall’s array of 297 rooftop solar panels is expected to produce the equivalent of 20 percent of the building’s energy needs, according to Joe Deets, executive director of Community Energy Solutions, the Bainbridge nonprofit group that spearheaded the privately-funded project.

“This is a great day for Bainbridge,” Deets said.

How many solar panels do you see on Valdosta City Hall? Well, that’s a historic building. But how about City Hall Annex? The parking lot? The formerly “100% Paid by SPLOST” Lowndes County palace that we’re now paying almost $9 million in bonds for? Nope, not a solar panel in sight.

Oh, sorry, that’s Continue reading →

Kewaunee nuke is shutting down; why are we building more at Vogtle?

Dominion Power is shutting down a nuke because it can’t compete economically. Why are we letting Georgia Power charge us up front and load us up with debt to build a nuke we already know can’t compete economically? After all, if it could, it wouldn’t need three-legged nuclear regulatory-capture stool that we the rate-payers and taxpayers are already paying on, instead of getting on with solar and wind power.

According to 22 October 2012 PR from Dominion Power:

Dominion (NYSE: D) today said it plans to close and decommission its Kewaunee Power Station in Carlton, Wis., after the company was unable to find a buyer for the 556-megawatt nuclear facility.

According to Dominion:

Kewaunee, Dominion’s fourth nuclear station, generates 556 megawatts of electricity from its single unit. That’s enough to meet the needs of 140,000 homes.

The station began commercial operation in 1974…

1974? That’s the same year as Plant Hatch Unit 1, on the Altamaha River 100 miles from here. (Hatch Unit 2 came online in 1978.) But the Hatch reactors were relicensed in 2002 extending their lifetimes 20 years out to 2034 and 2038, so they won’t be closing, right?

Well, maybe they could. Howard A. Learner wrote for JSOnline 30 October 2012, Market has spoken in Kewaunee shutdown,

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First ALEC, now Heartland Institute: losing sponsors

Heartland Institute, one of only two organizations to field a speaker for continuing Plant Vogtle delays and cost overruns at this week's GA PSC hearing, has been dropped by every pharmaceutical company. When you're down to Heartland Institute and renewable-energy-opposing and astroturf-funding super-lobby group ALEC, itself rapidly losing members (so bad even Bank of America has dumped ALEC); and when your public hearing speakers are 40 to 1 against continuing with Southern Company and Georgia Power's nuclear boondoggle, maybe it's time to end it.

Brad Johnson wrote for thinkprogress 19 December 2012, Heeding Public Outrage, Pfizer Drops Climate Denial And Tobacco Front Group Heartland Institute,

The pharmaceutical giant Pfizer (PFE) has confirmed that it will no longer support the Heartland Institute, a political advocacy group that questions the science of climate change and tobacco smoking. Forecast the Facts, which is leading the campaign calling on corporations to drop Heartland, was informed of the decision by Pfizer's Corporate Secretary Matthew Lepore. Pfizer was a major donor to Heartland, giving $45,000 in 2012 alone.

Pfizer's decision means that there are no longer any pharmaceutical companies known to support the Heartland Institute.

Pfizer's last contribution to Heartland was in 2012. Pfizer's decision follows a groundswell of public outrage over the corporate support for the Heartland Institute's toxic behavior, including a billboard campaign that equated believers in climate change with serial killers such as the Unabomber. Over 150,000 people have signed petitions to corporate leaders to drop Heartland. Pfizer is the 21st company to end its support for Joseph Bast's organization, joining its competitors Amgen (AMGN), Eli Lilly (LLY), Bayer (BAYRY), and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), as well as major companies like General Motors (GM), State Farm, and PepsiCo (PEP).

That’s the best you’ve got for support, PSC, and you’re pretending continuing to let Southern Company and Georgia Power run up a bill of $billions is in the best interests of the people of Georgia?

-jsq

NRC doesn’t publish nuclear licensing documents

Kendra Ulrich of FOE at NRC Did you know the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission doesn’t publish nuclear licensee documents? Hear them say it on this video of Tuesday’s NRC “public meeting” in Maryland about restarting the San Onofre reactor in California. This is the same NRC that gave Plant Vogtle a clean bill of health at a public meeting two days before Unit 1 shut down, and the same NRC that could stop the new nukes there even if the GA PSC won’t. Plant Hatch This same NRC recertified Plant Hatch on the Altamaha in Georgia, extending the original 40 year design lifespan of Unit 1 from 2014 to 2034 and of Unit 2 from 2018 to 2038. But don’t worry; if you’re farther than 10 miles from Hatch, you’re outside the evacuation zone, so you must be safe, right? Just study the licensing documents to see; oh, wait!

Kendra Ulrich of Friends of the Earth asked the NRC some simple questions that stumped the Commissioners and staff. She wondered when the public could expect to see a a 50-59 analysis California Edison had done about restarting San Onofre. Dave Beaulieu, NRC Generic Communications Branch, said it was a “licensee document, licensee documents are not made public.” He did say NRC would release its own inspection results. She asked again, and Rick Daniel, NRC meeting facilitator suggested she submit written questions. Beauleiu summarized:

“At the end of the day, licensee documents are not made public; that’s the answer.”

So what would be the point of her submitting questions when she was just told they won’t make the answers public?

Ulrich continued by asking why NRC was considering going ahead on the basis of experimental data that has never been used before and that has not been made public. Remember this is about a nuclear reactor that was shut down because it was leaking. That question sure caused some passing of the buck and pretending not to understand the question by everybody in the room who should have been able to answer the question.

Here’s the video:

Video by Myla Reson, 18 December 2012, Maryland.

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Fake fracking reports: professor and institute head quit, other institute disbanded

From Austin to Buffalo, fake science for fracking is increasingly being exposed, Frack U with academic consequences: lead professor resigns, institute head quits, another institute disbanded. The image on the right (Frack U) is not a reputation any university wants to see. At least academia takes conflicts of interest seriously; now if government and the voters would do the same…. Or energy companies. Remember, shale gas (plus nuclear) is what Georgia Power and Southern Company are shifting to from coal, while shading us from the finances that would enable solar power for jobs and energy independence in south Georgia.

Terrence Henry wrote for NPR 6 December 2012, Review of UT Fracking Study Finds Failure to Disclose Conflict of Interest (Updated)

The original report by UT Austin’s Energy Institute, ‘Fact-Based Regulation for Environmental Protection in the Shale Gas Development,’ was released early this year, and claimed that there was no link between fracking and water contamination. But this summer, the Public Accountability Initiative, a watchdog group, reported that the head of the study, UT professor Chip Groat, had been sitting on the board of a drilling company the entire time. His compensation totaled over $1.5 million over the last five years. That prompted the University to announce an independent review of the study a month later, which was released today.

The review finds many problems with the original study, chief among them that Groat did not disclose what it calls a “clear conflict of interest,” which “severely diminished” the study. The study was originally commissioned as a way to correct what it called “controversies” over fracking because of media reports, but ironically ended up as a lightning rod itself for failing to disclose conflicts of interest and for lacking scientific rigor.

Unrepentant as recently as July, Professor Groat resigned in November. Plus this:

Raymond Orbach of UT’s Energy Institute has resigned after the group became engulfed in controversy over a study of fracking.

And elsewhere even more drastic results have ensued:

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Farewell Chairman Ashley Paulk @ LCC 2012-12-14

At the county’s farewell reception for retiring Chairman Ashley Paulk Friday, Attorney General Sam Olens gave him something to hang on the wall, Paulk said a few words, County Manager Joe Pritchard read a letter from incoming Chairman Bill Slaughter, and Pritchard said a few words and gave Paulk a rocking chair, in which he declined to sit.

At some later date maybe I’ll post a retrospective about my neighbor Ashley Paulk, but for now I think the many posts in this blog will serve, and meanwhile I look forward to seeing what the new Commission will do with new Commissioners Demarcus Marshall (District 4), John Page (District 5), and new Chairman Bill Slaughter.

Here’s a video playlist:

Farewell Chairman Ashley Paulk, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 14 December 2012.

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2012 Drought more expensive than Hurricane Sandy

You thought Hurricane Sandy was bad? You were right, but economically, the ongoing drought is worse economically. But we already know a much brighter path.

Weather Underground founder Dr. Jeff Masters wrote 16 November 2012, Lessons from 2012: Droughts, not Hurricanes, are the Greater Danger,

Sandy’s damages of perhaps $50 billion will likely be overshadowed by the huge costs of the great drought of 2012.

By Dr. Masters’ estimate, the 2012 drought will cost more than half again as much as Hurricane Sandy.

Also notice Hurricane Katrina still at the top of that table, with almost three times the economic damage and far more deaths than Hurricane Sandy. We could have gotten the message back in 2005, but hey, those were only poor southern people, so who, in for example New York City, really cared? Yes, I know many of us did and many of you actively helped, but I’m sure you see my point that when greater New York gets the storm, suddenly the country pays attention and a lot more people want to find out how to keep that from happening again.

What’s that drought look like for us here in Georgia at the moment, according to U.S. Drought Monitor?

Continue reading →