Take a stand against the the pipeline by sending in your comment to
FERC.gov. At the website you eRegister and they send you an email.
Once registered you can submit a comment on docket # PF14-1. Find
below an example of a comment, feel free to copy any or all as you
please:
Sabal Trail pipeline proposal poses a significant safety threat to
our community through accidents. Leaks from such pipelines in the US
have caused explosions and have destroyed homes and killed people 29
times this year alone. Since the proposed pipeline is much larger
than any of these recent explosions, a pipeline of 36 inch radius
could do extreme damage if such an accident should occur in the
Lowndes county area where it is proposed. Not only those living near
the pipeline but Continue reading →
No worries about this reactor coolant system defect; Westinghouse says so,
and didn’t even list Vogtle or Diablo Canyon, where Southern Company
and PG&E said they were going to install these shields.
Nevermind a reactor operator warned us back in January.
Westinghouse did list “Beaver Valley Unit 2, Callaway, D.C. Cook Unit 1, Farley
Units 1 and 2, and Wolf Creek”.
POTENTIAL EXISTENCE OF DEFECTS IN SHIELD PASSIVE THERMAL SHUTDOWN
SEAL SYSTEM
“The defect being reported concerns an identified inconsistency
between the intended design functionality of the SHIELD passive
thermal shutdown seal (SDS) and that observed during post-service
testing.
“The purpose of the SDS is to reduce current reactor coolant system
inventory losses to very small leakage rates for a plant that
results in the loss of all reactor coolant pump (RCP) seal cooling.
The SDS is a Continue reading →
DALTON, Ga. — Trillions of cubic feet of natural gas believed
to lie below the hills of northwest Georgia have remained virtually
untouched and unwanted — until now.
Shale gas drilling is slowing across the country, but a handful of
companies are poking around this corner of the state looking for the
next natural gas “play.” If they succeed, Georgia could join the
ranks of states reaping jobs, revenue and fears of environmental
damage from energy production, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has
learned….
In Alabama, the Conasauga shale field contains 625 trillion cubic
feet of gas, according to Bill Thomas, a geologist who taught at the
University of Kentucky and Georgia State. A similar amount could be
underground in Northwest Georgia, he added.
Lest you think fracking is something that happens only in faraway
places like
Alberta
or Pennsylvania,
look at
this map of North American shale gas basins,
extending right through the Appalachians from Pennsylvania through
West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina into Georgia, Alabama,
and Mississippi.
How long before Georgia Power or Southern Company decide natural
gas would be even cheaper if they fracked in Georgia or Alabama or Mississippi?
How long until
unavoidable human error
starts fracking polluting our local groundwater and rivers?
For that matter, isn’t it bad enough already that other people’s
water is fracked for cheap gas in Georgia?
What do you get in a solar spill?
A sunny day.
What do you get in a fracking spill?
Polluted groundwater and drinking water.
When do you get it?
Whenever somebody makes a mistake, which turns out to be frequently.
“There is no amount of regulation that can overcome human error,”
said Alberta’s Energy Resources Conservation Board (ERCB) spokesman
Darin Barter. ERCB released an investigation report that cites
inadequate management of risks as one of the main causes of a
September 2011 accident that contaminated groundwater with toxic
hydraulic fracturing chemicals, including the cancer causing agent
known as BTEX (benzene, toulene, ethylbenzene, and xylene).
At least the company involved in this particular incident did something about it:
Personnel from Crew Energy told the Calgary Herald the company is
“embarrassed” about the accident. Rob Morgan, chief operating
officer for Crew said, “there’s no question of our appreciation of
the severity of this,” adding, “pretty much all of the personnel who
were involved in this particular circumstance are no longer with the
company.”
But the groundwater is still contaminated.
And where will they find replacement personnel who will never make mistakes?
Georgia Power’s parent Southern Company (SO) is bragging about selling a 100 MW biomass plant to Austin Energy. Funny how SO’s press release doesn’t mention Austin Energy’s buyer’s remorse. Let’s see why Austin Energy should regret buying biomass.
Southern Company SO announced today that the nation’s largest biomass plant is putting electricity on the grid in Texas. Southern Company President, Chairman and CEO Thomas A. Fanning joined state and local dignitaries today at the company’s Nacogdoches Generating Facility to mark commercial operation for the 100-megawatt unit.
Austin Energy is receiving energy from the plant through a 20-year power purchase agreement.
The PR goes on about local jobs and taxes, which could have been produced through building solar or wind generation. How much did that biomass plant cost Austin Energy? Funny how that’s not in the PR!
Austin City Council Member Mike Martinez wouldn’t mind a do-over on the $2.3 billion, 20-year energy contract the council approved in 2008.
The contract calls for Austin Energy to buy the entire output from the Nacogdoches Generating Facility, a 100-megawatt wood-waste-fueled biomass power plant.
“When the contract was initially brought to Council, it appeared to be a good deal to help us reach our adopted goals for renewables,” Martinez said.
At Southern Company’s (SO) shareholder meeting, I enumerated some examples in the U.S., Japan, and Germany of nuclear gone bad, and pointed out Japan, Germany, and even Bulgaria had already or were getting out of nuclear, while Southern Company and Georgia continued to bet the farm on nuclear, and I asked what was SO’s exit strategy for when that bad bet goes bad? SO CEO Thomas A. Fanning said they had learned everything there was to learn from Fukushima, and besides Plant Vogtle is 100 miles inland where there are no earthquakes. He didn’t mention the same description applies to Chernobyl. He did say SO planned to make the U.S. nuclear industry the best in the world.
You kept using big bets and then bet the farm. Very interesting terminology.
Regarding operations credibility, a year ago Vogtle Unit 1 shut down 2 days after the NRC gave Vogtle a clean bill of health. But the SO CEO says it’s all better now.
Here’s the video, followed by links to sources for the points I made:
Exit strategy for when this big nuclear bet goes bad? –John S. Quarterman Shareholder Meeting, Southern Company (SO), Callaway Gardens, Pine Mountain, Georgia, 23 May 2012. Video by John S. Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).
Here are the main points I was reading from, with links:
Wonder why Southern Company couldn’t get private financing for its new nukes at Plant Vogtle? Because back in June 2009 bond-rater Moody’s said this:
But from a credit perspective, the risks of building new nuclear generation
are hard to ignore, entailing significantly higher business and operating risk profiles, with construction risk, huge capital costs, and continual shifts in national energy policy.
In case that wasn’t clear enough, they spelled it out further.
Nuclear’s “bet-the-farm” risk
The NRC says about 14 companies to date have submitted COL applications, proposing numerous new nuclear reactors for power generation. The first of these COL’s is expected to be approved beginning in mid-2011. Many of the COL license applications include partners, but the next table lists the primary holding company entity behind each project, and our view of the activity level associated with the endeavor.
From a credit perspective, companies that pursue new nuclear generation will take on a higher business and operating risk profile, pressuring credit ratings over the intermediate- to long-term.
Moody’s wraps up with some reassuring words for financiers, but maybe not so reassuring to we the taxpayers:
The only two U.S. reactor projects now technically under construction are on the brink of death for financial reasons.
If they go under, there will almost certainly be no new reactors built here.
The much mythologized “nuclear renaissance” will be officially buried, and the U.S. can take a definitive leap toward a green-powered future that will actually work and that won’t threaten the continent with radioactive contamination.
Those are the stakes. And in that high-stakes poker game, it seems Southern Company is doing a little bluffing.
Received today on
Spectra reps unfamiliar with Spectra fines @ LCC 2013-12-09. -jsq
have caused explosions and have destroyed homes and killed people 29 times this year alone. Since the proposed pipeline is much larger than any of these recent explosions, a pipeline of 36 inch radius could do extreme damage if such an accident should occur in the
Lowndes county area where it is proposed. Not only those living near the pipeline but Continue reading
