Tag Archives: Planning

ALEC, private prisons, fossil fuels, and charter schools

It’s good to see someone trying a coordinated strategy for something good in multiple states, as Our Children’s Trust is doing for air as a public trust. We already knew going to multiple states at once works, because ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange, gets reactionary results that way.

How does ALEC do it? By

So once again, it’s refreshing to see somebody successfully try multiple states for something worthwhile!

The above ALEC projects are just some I’ve run across while researching local topics. It often seems as if every rock I turn over has the ALEC millipede scurrying around under it. Far more about ALEC is available through ALEC Exposed.

ALEC Exposed has a list of companies that have dumped ALEC recently. Georgia Power’s parent The Southern Company and UPS are still not on that list. You can help. Let them know you want them to dump ALEC!

-jsq

 

New research shows Natural Gas far more dangerous for climate stability —Seth Gunning

Received yesterday on U.S. CO2 emissions lowest in 20 years: that's good and bad: natural gas is methane, after all. -jsq

Yet another comprehensive article. I might also add that one of the major down-falls (if not the most significant) of large-scale conversions to natural gas is the resources lifecycle methane emissions.

As your readers likely know, Methane is about twenty times as 'potent' a greenhouse gas as Carbon Dioxide. That is to say, it is far more efficient at trapping heat then Co2. So, less methane has a far greater impact on climate disruption then more Co2.

Natural Gas, from the point of combustion, releases about half the amount of Co2 released from burning coal, and about 30% of what's released in burning oil. To keep the benefits of reduced Co2 levels when switching from coal to natural gas, natural gas wells and transport lines must leak less then 2% of methane into the atmosphere. Recent research from Cornell is showing that Fracking wells are regularly releasing more then 4%, and often as much as 8% —far exceeding the 2% threshold— and thus making Natural Gas a far more dangerous resource for climate stability.

Tom Zeller Jr. wrote for the NYTimes 11 April 2011, Studies Say Natural Gas Has Its Own Problems

-Seth Gunning

-jsq

Another sewage overflow after FEMA finally decides about Valdosta wastewater plant

Since the floods of 2009 Valdosta had been waiting on FEMA to say whether it would grant some funding for improving the wastewater treatment plant that flooded then. Finally, FEMA gave a decision, no, which allowed the Valdosta City Council to choose another path. But not in time for improvements before the same plant had another wastewater overflow.

WCTV posted PR from the City of Valdosta of 17 August 2012, Major Sewage Overflow from Withlacoochee Water Pollution Control Plant,

At approximately 1 a.m. on Aug. 16, 2012, the pumps in the Influent Pump Station of the Withlacoochee Water Pollution Control Plant (WPCP) stopped working.

An emergency bypass pump system was placed into service at 12:45 a.m., on Aug. 17; and as a result, the sewer spills are no longer occurring. Contractors are currently on site investigating the cause of the failure, which has not yet been determined, while also making necessary repairs to the damaged equipment.

Sewer overflows were recorded at the following locations within the sewer collection system:

Continue reading →

U.S. CO2 emissions lowest in 20 years: that’s good and bad

The good news: because utilities such as Southern Company are switching away from coal U.S. emissions of CO2 are the lowest they’ve been in 20 years. The bad news: they’re switching to natural gas, which not only still emits carbon dioxide, it pollutes groundwater through fracking, requires a lot of groundwater to do the fracking in the first place, and then uses more groundwater for cooling. But the further good news is cheaper energy sources drive out expensive ones, and wind and solar are already cheaper than nuclear and coal, and solar is already cheaper than natural gas. Oh, and solar and wind emit no CO2.

Kevin Begos write for AP yesterday, AP IMPACT: CO2 emissions in US drop to 20-year low

“There’s a very clear lesson here. What it shows is that if you make a cleaner energy source cheaper, you will displace dirtier sources,” said Roger Pielke Jr., a climate expert at the University of Colorado.

While conservation efforts, the lagging economy and greater use of renewable energy are factors in the CO2 decline, the drop-off is due mainly to low-priced natural gas, the agency said.

A frenzy of shale gas drilling in the Northeast’s Marcellus Shale and in Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana has caused the wholesale price of natural gas to plummet from $7 or $8 per unit to about $3 over the past four years, making it cheaper to burn than coal for a given amount of energy produced. As a result, utilities are relying more than ever on gas-fired generating plants.

Both government and industry experts said the biggest surprise is how quickly the electric industry turned away from coal. In 2005, coal was used to produce about half of all the electricity generated in the U.S. The Energy Information Agency said that fell to 34 percent in March, the lowest level since it began keeping records nearly 40 years ago.

And that’s why Southern Company (SO) turned towards natural gas: it’s cheaper! SO still prefers nuclear and coal before gas, as SO CEO Thomas A. Fanning keeps reminding us. But even SO couldn’t ignore “the revolution in shale gas”, which is cheaper prices through fracking. Solar PV costs dropped 50% last year alone. How long can SO ignore that?

“Natural gas is not a long-term solution to the CO2 problem,” Pielke warned….

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Vogtle circular firing squad delaying opening

Southern Company and the other owners of Plant Vogtle are blaming the contractors (who are suing them) for further delays in construction. How much money will they waste before they never open?

Kristi E. Swartz wrote for the AJC yesterday, Disputed costs at Vogtle rise,

Georgia Power and a group of municipal and cooperative electric companies are building twin 1,100-megawatt reactors, the first in the United States to win permits in 30 years. The total expected cost of the project is $14 billion, but potential cost overruns at Vogtle, located in Waynesboro in east Georgia, continue to grow, according to the recent Southern Co. regulatory filing.

Delays in getting federal licensing approvals for the new reactor design and then for the entire project have been cited as the chief culprit.

Because of the dispute with contractors over the additional costs, “the owners are evaluating whether maintaining the currently scheduled commercial operation dates of 2016 and 2017 remains in the best interest of their customers,” the filing said. The total amount of the cost overruns could be well over $900 million; Georgia Power owns 45.7 percent of the project, so its share is $425 million, the latest filing said. Originally the overrun was projected at $400 million when the issue was first made public in April.

Up another $25 million since April? How long until it gets into billions of cost overruns? Which will be paid by whom?

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Video of stealth education panel at Lowndes High last night

Here’s George Boston Rhynes’ first video from last night’s stealth education panel. The VDT covered it, but, presumably due to its bizarre policy of not covering candidates for office, the VDT didn’t even mention that J.C. Cunningham, Democrat running for Georgia House District 175, was present, even though the VDT posted pictures and quotes from the incumbent, Republican Amy Carter, who apparently organized the panel. Charter schools were discussed; see below after the video.

Video of stealth education panel at Lowndes High last night
Video by George Boston Rhynes for K.V.C.I and bostongbr on YouTube,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 14 August 2012.

On the panel, left to right:

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“It’s almost like they are out to take advantage of the rubes,” —an economist

Do big box stores count as development? Are they worth millions in tax incentives and bond investments? Maybe we can find something better for local industry and jobs.

Rumors have been flying for years about a Bass Pro store coming to Valdosta, like this one on a Georgia Outdoor News forum:

01-22-2008, 09:05 PM, bear-229
ive heard the land has been bought. very close to the new toyota lot but it has not made it to the “new locations” on the web site

That’s on James Road, in that huge proposed development that Lowndes County approved around that time.

Scott Reeder wrote for The Atlantic 13 August 2012, Why Have So Many Cities and Towns Given Away So Much Money to Bass Pro Shops and Cabela’s?,

Both Bass Pro Shops and its archrival, Cabela’s, sell hunting and fishing gear in cathedral-like stores featuring taxidermied wildlife, gigantic fresh-water aquarium exhibits and elaborate outdoor reproductions within the stores. The stores are billed as job generators by both companies when they are fishing for development dollars. But the firms’ economic benefits are minimal and costs to taxpayers are great.

An exhaustive investigation conducted by the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity found that the two competing firms together have received or are promised more than $2.2 billion from American taxpayers over the past 15 years.

Where does all that money come from? Bonds, usually. Which is yet another reason why last legislature’s HB 475 to give unelected bodies bond issuing privatizing power would be a bad idea.

What does all that money go for?

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There is something you can do

Anybody who has tried to do much of anything around here has run into this phrase:

There’s nothing you can do.

I was reminded of that when I read this, from the Economist 12 May 2012, Hope springs a trap,

This hopelessness manifests itself in many ways. One is a sort of pathological conservatism, where people forgo even feasible things with potentially large benefits for fear of losing the little they already possess.

The article expands on that idea:

Development economists have long surmised that some very poor people may remain trapped in poverty because even the largest investments they are able to make, whether eating a few more calories or working a bit harder on their minuscule businesses, are too small to make a big difference. So getting out of poverty seems to require a quantum leap—vastly more food, a modern machine, or an employee to mind the shop. As a result, they often forgo even the small incremental investments of which they are capable: a bit more fertiliser, some more schooling or a small amount of saving.

It may seem that the article is about the poorest of people, but that “pathological conservatism” could as easily apply to the hopelessness many people seem to have about ever getting solar panels on their own roofs, or to attracting enough business to our area to employ our high school and college graduates, or that businesses will ever come to the south side.

Yet the point of the article is that field studies by MIT economist Esther Duflo show Continue reading →

Toxic air in Georgia —NRDC

Georgia's air: not quite as bad as Florida's.

WTXL wrote Thursday, Florida and Georgia ranked high for toxicity exposure,

According to an analysis released by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Florida is the 6th worst state in the nation when it comes to exposing residents to toxic air pollution from coal-fired power plants.

Florida's air would rate even worse if Florida Power and Light had to burn coal in Florida instead of at Plant Scherer near Macon to generate power for Florida. Instead, FPL dirties Georgia's air for Florida's benefit.

Georgia is ninth worst on the NRDC's Toxic 20 list, in “Toxic Power: How Power Plants Contaminate Our Air and States”. Here's NRDC's press release.

-jsq

GA Sec. State hears complaints from voters @ Brooks 2012-08-09

Kemp listening

Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp came to Quitman Thursday to hear about election issues. Here is the first of many videos George Boston Rhynes took of the event. There are more on his YouTube channel, bostongbr,, and I will post some of them here, too.

This local voter pretty much summed it up:

My county commissioners… found nothing wrong with this. How much can one community endure? They found nothing wrong with this! How much can one community endure to have a right to have our votes cast and counted for who we want to represent us.

Here’s the video:

GA Sec. State hears complaints from voters about Elections,
GA Sec. State Brian Kemp, Brooks County (Brooks),
Video by George Boston Rhynes for bostongbr on YouTube (K.V.C.I.), Quitman, Brooks County, Georgia, 9 August 2012.

-jsq