To make up for lost time in getting Georgia in the lead in solar power for jobs, energy independence, and profit, how about we elect legislators who will implement a feed-in tariff? If we can afford massive subsidies to Georgia Power and Southern Company for electricity nobody will get for years from their nuke boondoggle, we can afford a feed-in tariff that costs nobody until solar (and wind) power is actually generated.
According to last month’s Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment 2012,
Support for renewable power generation remains the most popular policy option with at least 65 countries and 27 states now having feed-in-tariffs (FITs).
Fred wrote for ReVision Energy 10 August 2010, NREL: Feed in Tariffs Drive Competition, Costs Down for Renewables, While Increasing Growth,
“The arguments in favor of a FIT policy are primarily economic in nature. These include the ability to … stimulate significant and quantifiable growth of local industry and job creation … [and] only cost money if projects actually operate”
Get that last part? “…only cost money if projects actually operate” unlike Southern Company’s Plant Vogtle nuke boondoggle, which is costing Georgia Power customers right now on their bills, even though they won’t get any electricity from those nukes for years, if ever, plus they’re on the hook for cost overruns, too, already $400 million and climbing.
Look at that map: the big blank space in the southeast is mostly Southern Company’s “Competitive Generation Opportunities”, minus Florida. Translation: where Southern Company holds us back from leading the world in solar energy.
Dear Thomas A. Fanning, CEO of Southern Company, and Paul Bowers, CEO of Georgia Power: how about turn that ship around and get in the lead of the convoy?
Well, they may not listen, but we the voters have an opportunity right now to elect Georgia legislators and Public Service Commissioners who will put a lid on the power utility smoke and let the sun shine on Georgia!
-jsq
“Renewable (energy sources are) going to have a sliver,” Bowers said of fuels to create electricity. “Is it going to be 2 or 4 percent? That’s yet to be determined. Economics will drive that. But you always remember (that renewable energy is) an intermittent resource. It’s not one you can depend on 100 percent of the time.”
Austin Energy flipped in one year
from spouting such nonsense to deploying the most aggressive solar rooftop
rebate program in the country.
Austin Energy did the math and found those rebates would cost
about the same as a coal plant and would generate as much energy.
And when it is needed most, unlike the fossilized baseload grid,
which
left millions without power in the U.S. in June
and
hundreds of millions without power in India in July.
