Category Archives: Safety

Georgia Power raising rates

Georgia Power is raising rates in January, despite its recent announcement that it would lower rates because of lower fuel bills. Why raising? Mostly the new nukes and for a new natural gas plant. And 16% of the rise is for energy efficiency. Does that seem like the right proportion to you?

Kristi Swartz wrote for the AJC 1 Nov 2012, Georgia Power bills to increase,

The average Georgia Power bill will increase about 44 cents a month starting in January, not decrease as many might have expected when the company announced last month its fuel costs had dropped.

The utility, which serves 2.4 million customers, notified state regulators in October that it would be applying for a residential rate reduction because the amount it pays for fuel has fallen 7 percent, saving $122 million. The utility cannot profit from lower fuel costs and must pass those savings on to customers.

So why are customer rates going up?

About $1.05 of the typical residential bill will go toward paying for a new natural gas unit at Plant McDonough-Atkinson in Smyrna. That increase already was approved as part of a three-tiered rate hike set in 2010.

Yep, that’s that set-in-2010 and keep-rising-’till-2013 natural gas rate hike that Georgia Power got away with while complaining about any potential solar subsidies. The one AJC complained would be “on autopilot”: Continue reading →

Nuclear reactors near here

If you think of nuclear reactors as something far away, or as much safer than Fukushima, you’re in for a surprise. The most notorious reactors are the ones not yet built, units 3 and 4 at Plant Vogtle near Augusta and their famous financial boondoggle. But others are closer, older, and more numerous than you may know.

Here’s a map by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).

That map’s not clickable, so here’s a table, selected from an NRC table by distance from Valdosta:

NameOwnerWhereDistance
from
Valdosta
Hatch 1 & 2* SNOC 11 miles N of Baxley, GA 100 miles
Farley 1 & 2SNOC 18 miles SE of Dothan, AL 125 miles
Crystal River 3 PGN 80 miles N of Tampa, FL 160 miles
Vogtle 1 & 2 SNOC 26 miles SE of Augusta, GA 200 miles
Summer SCEG 26 miles NW of Columbia, SC 300 miles
Saint Lucie 1 & 2 FPL 10 miles SE of Ft. Pierce, FL 325 miles
Oconee 1,2,3 Duke 30 miles W of Greenville, SC 330 miles
Robinson 2 PGN 26 miles NW of Florence, SC 350 miles
Sequoya 1 & 2 TVA 16 miles NE of Chattanooga, TN 360 miles
Catawba 1 & 2 Duke 18 miles S of Charlotte, NC 390 miles
McGuire 1 & 2 Duke 17 miles N of Charlotte, NC 410 miles
Browns Ferry 1,2,3* TVA 32 miles W of Huntsville, AL 410 miles
Turkey Point 3 & 4 FPL 20 miles S of Miami, FL 440 miles
Brunswick 1 & 2* PGN 40 miles S of Wilmington, NC 480 miles
Waterford 3 Entergy 25 miles W of New Orleans, LA 495 miles
Shearon Harris 1 PGN 20 miles SW of Raleigh, NC 498 miles
* GE Mark I; Duke: Duke Energy Power Company, LLC; Entergy: Entergy Nuclear Operations, Inc.; FPL: Florida Power & Light Co.; PGN: Progress Energy; SCEG: South Carolina Electric & Gas Co.; SNOC: Southern Nuclear Operating Company; TVA: Tennessee Valley Authority

Five operating nuclear power reactors are closer to us Continue reading →

County clarifies library and parks division in SPLOST VII

SPLOST VII’s $22 million for a new library and parks and rec goes about 2/3 for the library and 1/3 for parks and rec, and the latter doesn’t all go to parks and rec at Five Points, according to a mysterious red-letter note that has sprung up on the Lowndes County website.

The front page of lowndescounty.com has sprouted this undated and unsigned clarification under the SPLOST VII heading:

Exhibit A (Please note that the $22 million proposed by Lowndes County for the Library and Parks & Recreation, represents a division of approximately $14.5 million for the Library and approximately $7.5 million for Parks & Recreation. In addition, the $7.5 million proposed for Parks & Recreation is not allocated for parks and improvements at the 5-Points site. Parks & Recreation will use these funds for improvements in other areas of the county.)

Exhibit A is the list of projects and estimated costs that includes this item:

  • payment of bond debt for acquisition and construction of and equipping a new library facility and parks and recreation facilities
 
$ 22,000,000

Can somebody explain why the new library and Parks and Rec were lumped together in the first place? At least the county is sort of trying to explain the difference now.

They didn’t include the pie chart with their clarification.

Revised SPLOST VII Pie

I made the pie chart; took about Continue reading →

Sewage problems in Quitman

Pipes In Quitman, several people told LAKE about an extensive sewage problem on the south side of town. At one house we were told that she had been having problems for 13 years. She said the city told her to lift up her pipes, which she did. Yet sewage still makes a pit in her yard, which she has covered with tin; you can see the pit under there.

Tin Lifting up the tin

When she uses her plumbing, sewage backs up inside the house. The city sent a jail inmate Continue reading →

Bill Moyers on ALEC

Bill Moyers takes on ALEC.

Posted yesterday On Bill Moyers’ website, ‘United States of ALEC’ Video Previews

This week, Moyers & Company (check local listings) presents “United States of ALEC,” a report on the most influential corporate-funded political force most of America has never heard of — ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council. A national consortium of state politicians and powerful corporations, ALEC presents itself as a “nonpartisan public-private partnership”. But behind that mantra lies a vast network of corporate lobbying and political action aimed to increase corporate profits at public expense without public knowledge.

He said more on Huffington Post Wednesday,

Continue reading →

SPLOST VII project totals don’t match

It would be easier for people to vote for SPLOST VII if they knew what they were getting. So far, that’s difficult to tell from what’s been published. Many questions remain to be answered.

We’ve already seen the WCTV story that quotes a total of $35 million for SPLOST VII. And Jason Schaefer wrote for the VDT 5 August 2012, SPLOST project list released: Renewed sales tax would build library, auditorium

The county projects penny sales tax collections through SPLOST VII to total at least $150 million during a six-year period, a sum that could fund a library complex, an auditorium, the installation of a mandated public safety radio system, an array of municipal water and sewage improvements, new equipment for police officers and firefighters, and road maintenance projects.

There is not adequate funding for these projects if the SPLOST referendum does not pass, according to city and county planners.

$150 million is not $35 million. $150 million divided by six is $25 million, not $35 million.

The mystery deepens.

Continue reading →

New NRC head says agency is standing up for public health and safety

Sounds to me like the NRC is not telling its new chief everything. For example, what about Vogtle unit 1 shutting down right after it passed an NRC review? What about cancer in Shell Bluff, Georgia, near the reactors?

Mike M. Ahlers wrote for CNN 14 August 2012, New NRC chair vouches for agency’s independence, states goals

Allison Macfarlane said Tuesday she has confidence in the agency and its independence from the nation’s 104 commercial nuclear power plants.

“I have some strong initial impressions of the agency, and one is that I’ve been very impressed with the staff and their dedication to safety, and their willingness to stand up to industry when they believe a situation is not safe,” Macfarlane said in a wide-ranging discussion with reporters.

“So I’m actually quite assured that the agency is completing its mission of protecting public health and safety,” she said. “They take safety issues very seriously. They take their role as regulators very seriously and the public should be assure that they have the public’s best interests in mind.”

Macfarlane said she hopes to build public confidence in the agency by improving communication, increasing transparency and making NRC documents understandable. “Some of them are rather opaque,” she allowed.

She has said some slightly more impressive things back before she was appointed. Continue reading →

Sinkhole under the shed

The sinkholes are not just in the garage and under the front steps, Michael McCormick walking towards his shed there’s one under Michael McCormick’s tool shed. He already jacked up the shed and put blocks under it after the ground sunk underneath it. With all these sinkholes on his lot (and more in the yard), how are they connected underground? How will they expand?

Here’s a video playlist:

Videos by Gretchen Quarterman and John S. Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE), Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 28 August 2012.

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Sinkholes towards the house

The sinkholes are not just in Michael McCormick’s garage. Sinkholes there there and there Michael McCormick showing ground scans of sinkholes to Gretchen Quarterman According to groundscan radar by a VSU professor and students, the sinkholes are also spreading under his front steps and his house.

The steps are sinking and there’s a crack on the wall inside the house.

Continue reading →

Industrial Authority has to be congratulated —Michael G. Noll

Received yesterday on WCTV on biomass site VLCIA v. Sterling Planet. -jsq

Wiregrass Activists for Clean Energy (WACE) have made it clear from the start that biomass plants have a number of issues: 1) biomass plants bear significant health risks; 2) biomass plants waste enormous amounts of water; 3) biomass plants are risky investments in an increasingly competitive energy sector; and 4) biomass plants contribute to global warming.

In the light of rising global temperatures, worsening drought conditions, and dropping prices for solar panels, an increasing number of people are understanding these simple truths.

The Industrial Authority has to be congratulated for the courage to admit that energy from biomass plants is indeed more expensive than energy from solar plants, and we have not even figured in the costs associated with the consequences of air pollution coming from biomass plants.

(For more information on biomass plants, here a testimony I recently gave: http://www.bredl.org/pdf3/120828_WACE-Comments-Docket_NO-E-100_SUB113.pdf)

Although this point has already been made earlier, note again that solar plants are much better alternatives, economically and environmentally: they do not pollute our air, they do not need any water, and a huge spill of solar energy is simply called a sunny day … of which we have plenty here in the south.

-Michael G. Noll

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