Tag Archives: Valdosta

Southern Company and Duke backing solar Florida

Are all the fracking utitilies finally seeing the sunlight?


By Backing solar power
in Florida, are Duke, Southern Company, TECO, and even FPL’s parent NextEra
hedging their bets, or finally realizing where the future is?

Reem Nasr, CNBC, 12 June 2015,

The sleeping giant of the solar industry: Florida,

Duke Energy Florida told CNBC that it “is a strong supporter of
solar energy and we are committed to helping to grow solar in
Florida.” Last month it announced an additional 500 megawatts of
solar facilities by 2024, among other solar projects.

Meanwhile in May Duke Energy of Charlotte, North Carolina
bought 7.5% of Sabal Trail, along with Spectra Energy of Houston
and NextEra Energy of Juno Beach, Florida.

Southern Co., which owns Florida’s Gulf Power, said the following:

Continue reading →

Georgia #1 in solar jobs and China beats its own emissions pledge

It’s great the three biggest climate change problem countries are finally

300x454 E2 Top 10 Q1 2015, in Clean Energy Works for US: Q1 2015 Jobs Report, by Environmental Entrepeneurs, 30 June 2015
committing to emissions reductions and other substantial changes,
although not enough to, you know,
stop global warming from getting even worse.
Meanwhile, CO2 emissions did not increase from 2013 to 2014,
even though the global economy grew, and this was largely
because of renewable energy deployment in China.
That’s right: China is actually leading the way faster on climate change
than it is promising to do.
And the old fake excuse that we need fossil fuels for economic growth
is busted.
Oh, and Georgia is leading the U.S.!

Chris Mooney and Steven Mufson, Washington Post, 30 June 2015,

In a major moment for climate policy, China, Brazil, and the U.S. all announce new commitments, Continue reading →

Want to help stop racism? End the failed war on drugs!

If we’re tired of arguing over pieces of cloth, how about we do


something about one of the main tools of racist oppression in the
U.S.? Legalize drugs, thus stopping paying for 75% of the U.S.
prison population, which is far more black than white, and is often
rented out for literally pennies.
Remember, slavery is not illegal
in the U.S., as long as it is punishment for some crime. Second clause, 13th Amendment:

except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted

More black men are in jail, prison, probation, or parole now
than were enslaved in 1850, as Michelle Alexander has noted.
Anyone who says Continue reading →

Georgia Power starts selling rooftop solar tomorrow

For most of June, Georgia Power has had two ads rotating on the

300x225 Sunlight from Georgia Power, in Giving you the power to go solar, by Gretchen Quarterman, 10 June 2015
five LED billboards in Valdosta, saying

Giving you the power to go solar —Georgia Power

When? Tomorrow, July 1st, as

Southern Company CEO Tom Fanning said
at the SO Stockholder meeting 27 May 2015.
Why then?
Because that’s when

HB 57, aka the Solar Power Free-Market Financing Act of 2015,

goes into effect.
As Tom Fanning has made his mantra since that meeting:

“If somebody wants to buy distributed generation, I want to sell it to ’em,”

Herman K. Trabish, Utility Dive, 11 June 2015

Inside Georgia Power’s move into the residential solar market:
The utility says it will offer solar through an unregulated business, but installers fear possible anticompetitive impacts, Continue reading →

Chamber goes to bat for Moody

Don’t fix it if it ain’t broken, says the Valdosta-Lowndes Chamber of Commerce

300x243 MAZ resolution --VLCoC, in Chamber goes to bat for Moody, by Valdosta-Lowndes Chamber of Commerce, 26 June 2015
about the county-proposed

changes to the Moody Activities Zone (MAZ),
in a resolution
mailed to its members Friday.

Chamber Board of Directors action:

While
the Valdosta-Lowndes Chamber of Commerce is extremely supportive of
property rights and wary of intrusion upon those rights, we are also
extremely supportive of Moody Air Force Base and its continued and
varied missions in our community. Moody, for more than 70 years, has Continue reading →

Moody MAZ, Agriculture, Church @ GLPC 2015-06-29

This evening, the notorious

TXT-2015-01 Moody Activity Zoning Districts (MAZ) ULDC text amendments


are back on the agenda, for decision by the Lowndes County Commission
a month later.
Usually reliable sources say the Valdosta-Lowndes Chamber of Commerce
will be opposing some of these changes.
Meanwhile, LAKE has laid out the board packet item from last time so you can get an idea of what’s going on and why, including links to the LAKE videos of the previous GLPC and Lowndes County Commission meetings where these MAZ changes were discussed.


REZ-2015-12 Martha Russ
wants to zone to less density while

REZ-2015-13 Clementine Miller
wants more density.
And in Valdosta

CU-2015-02 Kelly Barcol
wants a church in a Single-Family Residential (R-10) district.

Here’s the agenda. Continue reading →

Jimmy Carter’s dream of a solar-powered world is coming true now

U.S. president Jimmy Carter had a dream,

300x300 10360845 897383750328270 6241606373708524983 N, in Work together to turn our vision and dream into a solar reality --Jimmy Carter, by Climate Reality Project, 20 June 1979
thirty six years before Pope Francis spelled out why we all need to escape a dark hot nightmare,
and Jimmy Carter’s sunny dream is now coming true.

Today, in directly harnessing the power of the Sun, we’re taking the
energy that God gave us, the most renewable energy that we will ever
see, and using it to replace our dwindling supplies of fossil fuels.

Continue reading →

Budget Adoption Meeting, Lowndes County @ LCC Budget 2015-06-23

A Budget Adoption Meeting 5PM before the 5:30 PM Regular Session,


as alluded to at
yesterday morning’s Work Session.
Is this a second Budget Hearing?
Does it count if it’s not advertised as a Hearing?
And it turns out the proposed budget is on the county’s website,
just not where they previously said it would be.


Budget Adoption Meeting,

[5:00-5:30PM] Tuesday, June 23 Continue reading →

Four board appointments, plus Justice, Water, and Alcohol @ LCC 2015-06-22


Adoption of the Fiscal Year 2016 Budget to be considered Monday
morning and voted on Tuesday evening (see LAKE videos of Budget Hearing of two weeks ago), plus
a

300x298 Parcel 0043 016, in Buck Cato Road, by John S. Quarterman, 22 June 2015
GEFA Loan Modification
(thought they approved that 26 May 2015 for the Alapaha Water Treatment Plant),
a
Justice Assistance Grant,
a

SCADA lease-purchase agreement,
and the annual controversial
Mosquito Contract.

Two appointees each to
KLVB
and the
Library Board.
We don’t know who, because the county
posted the agenda only in PDF, with no item sheets.

Public Hearing
approved last month for the

Abandonment of Buck Cato Road: what’s causing all of these in the last couple years?
And they’ve found an excuse for their long-desired Continue reading →

Videos: Budget Public Hearing @ LCC Budget 2015-06-09



For the budget they will vote on Tuesday June 23rd,
two weeks ago
Finance Director Stephanie Black said:

“This is the public hearing”

What happened to the requirement for two budget public hearings?

The County Chairman said they had $7 million in requests above the expected
revenue, so they had had a difficult time coming up with a budget.
For (some of) how they did that, see the
LAKE videos of the 18 May 2015 Budget Work Session.

Half of this budget hearing consisted of the same presentation from
that previous meeting.
Then County Manager Joe Pritchard

added Continue reading →