We don’t have to look to far Texas for examples of where to put solar panels. Let’s try Atlanta.
Next to the downtown Marriott in Atlanta:
That’s Gretchen in the center as reference human for scale.
Google map picture:
Continue readingTwo former big-time politicos join the fight against CWIP.
Melissa Roberts wrote for CBS Atlanta yesterday, Unlikely duo challenges Ga. utility over rates,
The unlikely duo of ex-Democratic Gov. Roy Barnes and former Republican House Speaker Glenn Richardson are heading to court to challenge Georgia Power over a surcharge they say has cost ratepayers as much as $100 million.
They're going after Construction Work in Progress (CWIP)!
Jim Galloway in the AJC yesterday noted the irony,
The gentleman knows of what he speaks, and that is only one of the ironies here. The legislation that has allowed Georgia Power, for the last 15 months, to charge ratepayers for financial costs associated with the construction of two new nuclear power plants, was passed in 2009 during Richardson’s final session as the second- most powerful man in the Capitol.
Maybe he can help undo the harm he helped do. Ditto Roy Barnes, who got coal-plant-building Cobb EMC former head Dwight Brown off on a technicality.
Melissa Roberts wrote:
The lawsuit contends the utility is charging sales tax on the finance surcharge and the franchise tax paid to cities. Richardson said in a phone interview he and Barnes are two "Davids against the Goliath."
Add those two Davids to the two Davids of Savannah, Drs. Sidney Smith and Pat Godbey and their Lower Rates for Customers LLC. Add a few more thousand Davids around the state paying their CWIP in separate checks with objections.
New Hampshire banned CWIP and their nuke-building utility went bankrupt. Missouri banned CWIP. Iowa is working on banning CWIP. Georgia can ban CWIP, too. Watch out Goliath!
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What if the Industrial Authority supported industry that had a business model, brought jobs, and had the support of the community? It can happen, and already has!
Citizen Carol wrote for Texas Vox 6 January 2012, Austin Energy drought proofs its energy with new Webberville Solar Project,
Public Citizen says kudos to the City of Austin and Austin Energy for their vision and efforts in completing this project. Given that the State Climatologist is warning us that Texas can expect up to 5 more years of the current drought cycle, this project came just in time to help provide our community with drought–proof electricity during the peak use times — that will come in handy next summer.
Remember we already discovered this right here in Valdosta and Lowndes County? The Wiregrass Solar commissioning was a popular event, with many critics of the Industrial Authority lavishly praising it for the solar plant. Nobody complained about living near a solar installation. How about some more clean industry?
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Citizen Carol wrote for Texas Vox 6 January 2012,
Austin Energy drought proofs its energy with new Webberville Solar Project
How about
on the proposed coal plant site in Ben Hill County?
A number of years ago, the City of Austin purchased this land
planning to install a new coal-fired power plant. When those plans
fell through, a landfill was proposed for the site that now boasts
280 acres of solar panels with a view of downtown Austin along its
horizon.
Of course, it doesn’t have to be that big, or all in one place. How about on top of a landfill? How about on the cotton fields next to Valdosta’s Sallas Mahone Elementary School? Energy to air condition the school instead of drifting pesticides, and profit to the landowner! How about at the airport? At the mall parking lot? On top of the new county palace? On the warehouses in Hahira?
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Harvey Wasserman wrote Friday for EcoWatch, Nuclear Power’s Green Mountain Grassroots Demise,
The accelerating revolution in renewables has allowed solar, windWe can end CWIP in Georgia. It will benefit Georgia Power and the EMCs as well as all the rest of us when we stop wasting tax and customer dollars on boondoggles like Plant Vogtle or biomass or private prisons and get on with clean, profitable, job-creating renewable energy in Georgia: wind off the coast and sun inland.and other green sources to outstrip atomic reactors in cost, time to build, ecological impact and safety. As billions pour into Solartopian sources, private investment in atomic energy has all but disappeared—except where there are massive taxpayer subsidies.
Even that’s not enough. In 2011, President Obama handed $8.33 billion in federal loan guarantees to the builders of two reactors at Georgia’s Vogtle. But Peach State ratepayers are already being soaked for billions more in pre-payments, and the cost of the project is soaring. A parallel financial disaster looms at the Robinson site in neighboring South Carolina. Though the industry assumes these four reactors will eventually be finished, economic realities may say otherwise.
Cost estimates for new nukes have been soaring even before construction begins. Even with federal money, the builders still demand that state ratepayers foot the bill as the process proceeds, meaning consumers are on the hook for multiple billions even if the reactors never open. Pitched battles over this Construction Work in Progress scam have already been won by consumers in Missouri and are being fought in Iowa and elsewhere. As the years of building drag on, costs will escalate while renewables continue to become cheaper. Sooner or later, construction is likely to stop, as it did at numerous projects in the 1970s and 1980s which were never finished.
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Here’s their PR, Austin Energy Activates 30 MW Solar Farm,
AUSTIN, Texas , Jan. 6, 2012 /PRNewswire/ — Austin Energy along with Austin City Mayor Lee Leffingwell , and Village ofWebberville Mayor Hector Gonzales today announced the activation of a 30 megawatt (MW) solar power plant located within the Village of Webberville, Texas . The activation of the power plant marks the first utility-scale solar deployment for Austin Energy and helps bring the utility one step closer to achieving a 35% renewable energy mix by 2020. It is the largest active solar project of any public power utility in the country, the largest active project in Texas and among the largest of all operating solar projects in America. The project was activated on December 20, 2011
The key was a PPA:
The utility-scale solar project was made possible through a 25-year solar power purchase agreement in which Austin Energy will purchase the energy at a fixed rate along with the renewable energy credits.In Georgia, PPAs can be made with municipal governments, universities, companies, or even individuals, if SB 401 passes.
An opportunity for EMCs: Continue reading
(G) For calendar year 2014,The Georgia House passed this bill unanimously, apparently paying attention only to the addition of geothermal and not noticing this item at the end. It is in the Senate Finance Committee.$52.5 million.”
Sen.
Tim Golden is a member.
Less than a year ago he
assisted in passing these very same renewable energy GEFA tax credits
and the next day in Valdosta at the ribbon cutting for the
Wiregrass Solar project he said:
…solar power at one time was a theory, and now it’s in practice.He and other Georgia State Senators need to know somebody in the statehouse is trying to stop that solar practice.
Capitol Office121-G State CapitolAtlanta, GA 30334 Phone: (404) 656-7580 Fax: (404) 651-6767 |
tim.golden@senate.ga.gov
District Information110 Beacon HillValdosta, GA 31602 Fax: (229) 241-7732 |
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PS: Owed to Claudia Collier.
PPS: Current law: Continue reading
Might be a good place to mention you want
the farm bill to reauthorize USDA Rural Energy for America Program (REAP)
grants.
Press Release, 8 March 2012, Chambliss to Host 2012 Farm Bill Forum,
Events will be held March 16th in Jesup and Tifton-jsqOn Friday, March 16th, Sen. Chambliss will hold two forums to discuss the upcoming 2012 Farm Bill. The public is invited to attend.
Friday, March 16th, 2012
Altamaha Technical College
at 9 am
C. Paul Scott Polytechnical Center
1777 West Cherry Street
Jesup, GA 31545
Participants will include:
Zippy Duvall, Georgia Farm Bureau
Charles Hall, Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association
Robert Redding, Southern Peanut Farmers Federation
John Maguire , National Cotton CouncilFriday, March 16th
UGA Tifton Campus Conference Center
at 2 pm
15 RDC Road
Tifton, GA 31793
Participants will include:
Gary Black, Georgia Commissioner of Agriculture
Charles Hall, Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association
Robert Redding, Southern Peanut Farmers Federation
John Maguire , National Cotton Council
Here’s an excerpt:
The PDF of the call includes these addresses:
Use two checks each time you pay your bill. One check covers the amount you are forced to pay for “Nuclear Construction Cost Recovery” (write “for solar construction” in the memo line). The other check covers the remaining amount of your actual electricity costs.
- Include a note in the letter with your checks voicing your opposition to nuclear power and ask Georgia Power to invest your funds in solar energy instead. This note could read:
- I oppose nuclear power because of its dangers to our health and our environment. (See the nuclear accidents at Fukushima, Chernobyl, and Three Mile Island)
- I oppose the construction surcharge for nuclear power plants because they are too expensive and waste billions of our tax dollars. (Plant Vogtle was originally estimated to cost $660 million. Eventually, only 2 of its proposed 4 reactors were built, costing more than $8 billion, and resulting in huge rate hikes for Georgia residents.)
- I ask that GA Power invest my money and any collected surcharges in solar instead.
|
Tim Echols, Chairman
Georgia Public Service Commission 244 Washington Street SW Atlanta, GA 30334 1-800-282-5813 |
W. Paul Bowers, CEO
Georgia Power Company 241 Ralph McGill Boulevard NE Atlanta, GA 30308 1-888-660-5890 |
Here are some more contacts.
You don’t even have to be a Georgia Power customer to write to these people. Most of them are elected or appointed officials who are supposed to represent you, the taxpayers.
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Herman K. Trabish wrote for Green Tech Media 22 February 2012, The Nuclear Industry’s Answer to Its Marketplace Woes: Construction Work in Progress (CWIP) financing shifts the risks of nuclear energy to utility ratepayers,
A sign of the nuclear industry’s difficult situation in the aftermath of Fukushima is a proposal before the Iowa legislatureAnd the Iowa Utilities Board staff agreed with Cooper and recommended against CWIP.that would allow utility MidAmerican Energy Holdings, a subsidiary of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, to build a new nuclear facility in the state using Construction Work in Progress (CWIP) financing (also called advanced cost recovery).
“Construction Work in Progress was intended to circumvent the core consumer protection of the regulatory decision-making process,” “Investment in nuclear power is the antithesis of the kind of
investments you would want to make under the current uncertain conditions,” explained nuclear industry authority Mark Cooper, a senior fellow for economic analysis at Vermont Law School’s Institute for Energy and the Environment. “They cannot raise the capital to build these plants in normal markets under the normal regulatory structures.”
CWIP would allow the utility to raise the money necessary to build a nuclear power plant by billing ratepayers in advance of and during construction.
“Construction Work in Progress was intended to circumvent the
core consumer protection of the regulatory decision-making process,” Cooper explained. “It exposes ratepayers to all the risk.” The nuclear industry’s answer to its post-Fukushima challenges, he said, “is to simply rip out the heart of consumer protection and turn the logic of capital markets on their head.”
His message to policymakers is simple, Cooper said. “This is an investment you would not make with your own money. Therefore, you should not make it with the ratepayers’ money.”Meanwhile, in Georgia: Continue reading