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:
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
Georgia Power’s Plant Scherer is #1 among the U.S. dirtiest power plants.
But FPL owns most of one of the four units there,
dirtying Georgia’s air for Florida’s power.
The same FPL that wants the fracked methane Sabal Trail pipeline
through Georgia, destroying Georgia’s environment.
It’s time for Georgia to say no to destroying Georgia’s environment
for a company in another state.
Thomas Stackpole wrote for Mother Jones 11 September 2013, 1 Percent of America’s Power Plants Emit 33 Percent of Energy Industry’s Carbon, Continue reading
Candidates for Lowndes County Commission went on the record ( Mark Wisenbaker and Tom Hochschild both running for District 3, and Norman Bennett and Gretchen Quarterman both running for District 5), plus a statement by County Chairman Bill Slaughter, in addition to essential background information from directly affected landowners in the audience and from the panelists on why the proposed Sabal Trail methane pipeline is bad for property values, is hazardous here and elsewhere, and will be obsolete in a few decades, all at a SpectraBusters panel on the Sabal Trail pipeline at VSU, Saturday 29 March 2014.
The panelists were Continue reading
Nonprofit As You Sow got mighty Southern Company to agree to report on renewable energy, which is the first step towards widespread adoption of solar power. How about taking on FPL next, about that Sabal Trail methane pipeline? And that green bond idea, how about our Industrial Authority take that up?
Dave Williams wrote for the Atlanta Business Chronicle yesterday, Southern Co. to report renewable energy spending,
Atlanta-based Southern Co. has agreed to produce a comprehensive report on its current renewable energy projects and plans for future development of renewables, an environmental organization reported Thursday.
The company’s decision prompted Oakland, Calif.-based nonprofit As You Sow to withdraw a shareholder resolution asking Southern to consider President Barack Obama’s goal of reducing carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050, the group said in a news release.
“To achieve that goal, utilities need to immediately shift Continue reading
Another observer gets it that green solar power is winning. Letting a fracking deliver company turn us into “stakeholders” in a white elephant methane pipeline would be an even huger waste after the pipeline stopped being used in a decade or so because sun, wind, and water power everything by then, winning like the Internet did.
Paul Gilding wrote on his blog 19 March 2013, Carbon Crash Solar Dawn,
I think it’s time to call it. Renewables and associated storage, transport and digital technologies are so rapidly disrupting whole industries’ business models they are pushing the fossil fuel industry towards inevitable collapse.
Some of you will struggle with that statement. Most people accept the idea that fossil fuels are all powerful — that the industry controls governments and it will take many decades to force them out of our economy. Fortunately, the fossil fuel industry suffers the same delusion.
In fact, probably the main benefit of the US shale gas and oil “revolution” is that it’s keeping the fossil fuel industry and it’s cheer squad distracted while renewables, electric cars and associated technologies build the momentum needed to make their takeover unstoppable — even by the most powerful industry in the world.
Why are the fossil fuel companies still pushing, then? Continue reading
We have all the technology right now that we need to power
the U.S. state by state and the world with solar, wind, and water power.
No burning coal or oil or fracked natural gas and no nukes.
No need for any new destructive and hazardous methane pipelines.
No waiting for batteries.
All we have to do is get on with it.
100% RENEWABLE ENERGY IS FEASIBLE AND AFFORDABLE, ACCORDING TO STANFORD PROPOSAL,
Stanford University researchers led by civil engineer Mark Jacobson have developed detailed plans for each state in the union that to move to 100 percent wind, water and solar power by 2050 using only technology that’s already available. The plan, presented recently at the AAAS conference in Chicago, also forms the basis for The Solutions Project nonprofit.
“The conclusion is that it’s technically and economically feasible,” Jacobson told Singularity Hub.
The plan doesn’t rely, like many others, on dramatic energy efficiency regimes. Nor does it include biofuels or nuclear power, whose green credentials are the source of much debate.
The proposal is straightforward: eliminate combustion as a source of energy, because it’s dirty and inefficient. All vehicles would be powered by electric batteries or by hydrogen, where the hydrogen is produced through electrolysis rather than natural gas. High-temperature industrial processes would also use electricity or hydrogen combustion.
The rest would simply be a question of allowing existing fossil-fuel plants to age out and using renewable sources to power any new plants that come online….
“The greatest barriers to a conversion are neither technical nor economic. They are social and political,” the AAAS paper concludes.
For Georgia, that’s 40% solar PV plants, 35% offshore wind, 13% rooftop PV (6% residential and 7% commercial), 5% concentrating solar plants, 5% onshore wind, and 1% each wind, tide, and conventional hydro power. Plus 210,200 construction jobs and 101,000 operation jobs. And saving $14.3 billion per year Continue reading
Gretchen Quarterman stood up for local landowners, the economy,
and the environment,
by reading the statement against the pipeline recently
approved by the Lowndes County Democratic Party, of which she is the chair,
at the
Valdosta FERC Scoping Meeting 4 March 2014.
Here’s the video:
Lowndes County Democratic Party opposes the Sabal Trail Methane Pipeline –Gretchen Quarterman
Sabal Trail Methane Pipeline,
Scoping Meeting, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC),
Video by John S. Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 4 March 2014.
Here’s the text she was reading: Lowndes County Democratic Committee Opposes Sabal Trail Methane Pipeline Continue reading
Danielle Jordan, VSU student and president of Students Against
Violating the Environment, stood up for local landowners and
the environment against Spectra’s Sabal Trail pipeline
at the
Valdosta FERC Scoping Meeting 4 March 2014,
by reading a statement against the pipeline by the
Sierra Club chapters of Alabama, Florida, and Georgia.
Here’s the text she was reading:
TRI-STATE SIERRA CLUB CHAPTERS OPPOSE GAS PIPELINE:
Statement of the Georgia, Florida, and Alabama Sierra Club
Chapters Opposing the Sabal Trail Pipeline.
Here’s the video:
Sierra Club Chapters Oppose Sabal Trail Gas Pipeline –read by Danielle Jordan
Sabal Trail Methane Pipeline,
Scoping Meeting, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC),
Video by John S. Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 4 March 2014.
-jsq
In snowy Massachusetts
you can finance a solar system with little money down
and complete payoff in 11 years.
Get the Georgia legislature to pass
HB 874 and we’ll be able to do this in sunny Georgia, too.
Used with permission from howeowner Carl Howe. -jsq
People seem interested so I’ll share details of our solar installation in Stow, MA.
Full disclosure: I know the president of our solar installation firm socially (he’s a friend of a friend of ours), and like many solar installers, they do pay referral fees if others sign up based on a recommendation from an existing customer. Should anyone decide to do business with our installer, New England Clean Energy, please mention my name.
We used New England Clean Energy from Hudson MA. I believe that they are one of, if not the, highest quality installer in our area. They have more than 300+ installations in MA and NH. Of course, SolarCity and others are also in the region, Continue reading
This makes state Senate district 8 an open seat.
Qualifying is al this week, Monday through Friday.
Dated 2 March 2014, STATEMENT OF SENATOR TIM GOLDEN:
Today, I am announcing that I will not be a candidate for re-election to the Georgia State Senate, District 8, in 2014. After 34 years in public service—more than half of what will soon be my 60 years on this earth—and having gone through many difficult yet successful campaigns during that time, I have decided that this is the right time to devote more time to my business career and to my family during the remainder of our son’s high school years before he goes on to college.
I’m familiar with at least
one of Sen. Golden’s campaigns,
but he has also
spoken up for solar power in Georgia,
although neither he nor his buddy Gov. Deal got it that doubling
GEFA’s solar state tax rebate fund once in 2011 wasn’t enough when
solar deployments increase 65% every year.
Witness we installed 12KW more of solar panels at the end of 2012
and we’re finally on the list for rebate for 2014
because state funds for 2012 and 2013 were already used up.
Maybe we can elect a state senator who will Continue reading