Category Archives: Solar

Divest Harvard is winning, and we all will win sun, wind, and water power

Changing the world is hard and takes courage, but that’s why we will win. Bill Sargent had given up on global projects and turned to smaller local problems where it seemed there was a greater change of making a real difference. He wrote for Harvard Heat Week 27 April 2015, Heat Week: Teaching An Old Dog New Tricks,

But then I met Divest Harvard. Here was a group of bright, eager, sleep-deprived young undergraduates and grad students — free of such skepticism and willing to take on both Big Oil and the richest University in the world in one fell swoop.

He listed a number of ways Divest Harvard is winning because they chose the biggest targets under adverse conditions. For example: Continue reading →

VSU President’s Committee votes to divest from fossil fuels

Students, staff, faculty, and administration all say divest from fossil fuels. What will the VSU Foundation do now? One year after the committee was appointed 10 April 2014, it made a decision 8 April 2015:

S.A.V.E. applauds the decision by the President’s Special Committee on Campus Sustainability to support fossil fuel divestment. Leadership and stewardship are part and parcel to Valdosta State’s role as an institution of higher education and we call on VSU to honor these ethos by divesting from fossil fuels, ending its profiteering from ecological harm, environmental destruction, and human suffering.

Benjamin Vieth, the representative of Students Against Violating the Environment (S.A.V.E.) on that Committee, sent the above announcement after approval by S.A.V.E. Among other organizations included on that committee, Continue reading →

Groundbreaking for solar at Fort Benning

First of three 30 MW military solar projects in Georgia, the other two ag Fort Gordon near Augusta and Fort Stewart near Savannah, plus a fourth one at Kings Bay Submarine Base. The U.S. military has long recognized fossil fuels are vulnerable supply chains that risk national security, and U.S. DoD is doing something about it.

Brennan Reh, wrbl.com, 17 April 2105, Ft. Benning solar power project groundbreaking

Fort Benning held a groundbreaking ceremony for the U.S. Army’s renewable energy solar project. Georgia Power is building solar panels that will cover 200 acres on the post.

The solar project on Fort Benning will be the army’s largest power project in Georgia.

The panels will generate 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 →

Meter installation for Alton Burns’ solar installation, Coolidge, Thomas County, GA

300x225 Ron Jackson, Alton Burns, John S. Quarterman, in Alton Burns' solar panels, by Alton Burns, 13 February 2015 The same day I wondered if Grady EMC demanding extra insurance was even legal, solar pioneer Alton Burns posted this comment:

Thank You Mr. John Quaterman as I commented on face-book, I talked to Mr. Rex Robertson with Grady EMC today and he told me that the EMC will install my bi-directional meter next week. I ask him, ”how many customers does Grady EMC serve?” he told me 13,000 and then I ask, “how many have solar?” he replied 4. That makes me a solar pioneer and this installation sets the precedence for those who follow. Once again Thank You very Much! Alton Paul Burns

Continue reading →

Alton Burns’ solar installation, Coolidge, Thomas County, GA

300x225 Sign panels, in Alton Burns' solar panels, by Alton Burns, 13 February 2015 Ron Jackson of South GA Solar Power of Valdosta installed these solar panels for Alton Burns of Coolidge, in Thomas County, GA.

Last I heard, Grady Electric Membership Corporation had still not done the grid connect, 8 weeks later. Something about wanting insurance. Colquitt EMC never asked for that when they connected my panels. Continue reading →

Stanford aluminum battery

Another entrant in the battery race to clean energy storage.

Mark Shwartz, Stanford PR, 6 April 2015, Aluminum battery from Stanford offers safe alternative to conventional batteries: The new aluminum-ion battery could replace many of the lithium-ion and alkaline batteries in wide use today.

Stanford University scientists have invented the first high-performance aluminum battery that’s fast-charging, long-lasting and inexpensive. Researchers say the new technology offers a safe alternative to many commercial batteries in wide use today.

“We have developed a rechargeable aluminum battery that may replace existing storage devices, such as alkaline batteries, which are bad for the environment, and lithium-ion batteries, which occasionally burst into flames,” said Hongjie Dai, a professor of chemistry at Stanford. “Our new battery won’t catch fire, even if you drill through it.”

Although drilling would produce aluminum dust, which isn’t exactly benign. However, point taken.

Personally, I still prefer Continue reading →

GA Senate unanimously approved solar financing bill

Friday’s vote started at least a year and a half ago. Organized years-long activism is paying off for everyone.

Summer before last, after statewide requests by Georgia Sierra Club, Greenlaw, and many others: Georgia PSC required Georgia Power to buy twice as much solar power. About a year later, Mary Landers, Savannahnow, 18 November 2014, Georgia is fastest growing solar market,

Last year the Georgia Public Service Commission approved a motion for Georgia Power, the state’s largest utility, to add 525 MW of solar power generation to its portfolio by 2016.

“That pushed out the growth of solar, especially projecting forward,” Continue reading →

Solar panels or plants must be on new commercial roofs in France

No different than requiring proportions of parking spaces: here’s one way to push the solar deployment curve up faster and hasten the year that most of the world’s power comes from the sun.

Agence France-Press 19 March 2015, France decrees new rooftops must be covered in plants or solar panels,

Rooftops on new buildings built in commercial zones in France must either be partially covered in plants or solar panels, under a law approved on Thursday.

Green roofs have an isolating effect, helping reduce the amount of energy needed to heat a building in winter and cool it in summer. The argument for divesting from fossil fuels is becoming overwhelming Read more

They also retain rainwater, thus helping reduce problems with runoff, while favouring biodiversity and giving birds a place to nest in the urban jungle, ecologists say.

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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 →