“Almost like a Berkshire-Hathaway meeting,”
remarked SO CEO Tom Fanning after
Sierra Club (and other) activists asked questions
at the

Southern Company stockholder meeting at Callaway Gardens yesterday,
as promised by the numerous news stories the previous day after the press conference organized by Georgia Sierra Club Director Colleen Kiernan.
As usual Fanning turned in a Class A CEO performance,
although he seemed bemused by the diversity and sometimes very positive
slant of the questions,
which nonetheless brought up numerous problems with SO’s coal and nuclear
agenda, lackluster renewable energy agenda, and

the impending disruption of distributed solar power.

New rule this year: no unauthorized video or flash photography,
posted on big signs outside the conference room door.


I asked Georgia Power CEO Paul Bowers to authorize me,
but he said it was a shareholder meeting and thus a different level.
The person in charge of SO’s own videoing promised they’d
be available on the web soon after the meeting.
I told him I’d been checking since last year’s meeting, and those
still weren’t on the web.
He said they had been briefly; then they were taken down.
But he would make them available.
We’ll see….
Meanwhile, you only get this one picture of Tom Fanning
(he insists everyone call him Tom) as he compared SO’s stock price to the only more stable company:
Hormel.
That’s right, SO is almost as stable as Spam.
He looked at me rather pointedly as he announced that new rule.
And rather wryly later when I pointed out
that according to Edison Electric Institute
SO’s business model was due for disruption very soon.
More on that later,
along with other reports on Wednesday’s meeting.

Walter C. Jones wrote for Morris News Service 21 May 2013,

Southern Co. expects to face environmental challenges,

A dozen Sierra members who own stock in the giant electricity
producer are primed to ask pointed questions about company policies,
club officials told reporters Tuesday.

“I think tomorrow presents a really good opportunity for
dialog,” said Colleen Kiernan, director of the Georgia Chapter
of Sierra Club.

She said Southern’s board chairman and president, Tom Fanning,
welcomes it.

“He really is open-minded and likes to hear from
shareholders,” she said, calling the question session a way to
“open executives’ minds to what people are thinking out there
in the real world.”

After Colleen and Tom’s excellent adventure, some of the Sierra Club crew had lunch.
Georgia Sierra Club Director Colleen Kiernan is second from
the near end on the right.
Sierra Club has been attending these meetings for years, but this year

putting out a petition
and doing

a news conference
beforehand got some pre-publicity.
The petition was delivered during the meeting by Seth Gunning,
pictured here on the left, third from the near end.
Each signature online was also emailed directly to Tom Fanning,
which appeared to get his attention.

Picture by John S. Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE), Pine Mountain, Georgia, 22 May 2013.

Dave Williams wrote for the Atlanta Business Chronicle,

Activist shareholders to grill Southern Co. execs on renewables,

Southern shareholders from Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi plan to
raise concerns about the extent of the company’s pursuit of wind and
solar power on Wednesday at its annual shareholder meeting….

But during a telephone news conference Tuesday, Kiernan said Georgia
Power’s decision to spend more than $5 billion on technological
improvements necessary to reduce pollution at several coal-fired
power plants rather than retire them shows the utility isn’t ready
to abandon an unhealthy source of energy.

“They’re not putting as much attention on real 21st century
energy … as to holding on tightly to their traditional sources of
nuclear and coal,” she said.

Southern CEO Tom Fanning disputed claims that the utility isn’t
serious about renewable energy last week during a speech to the
Atlanta Press Club. But he said the investments Southern makes in
renewables must make economic sense for shareholders and ratepayers.

“If it works for our customers, we’ll do it,” he said.
“But we’ve got to do it the right way.”

At the meeting, Fanning reiterated his position that solar might
be ready by 2018 or maybe 2023, although he and other SO execs
did announce some new developments, and (with a little prodding)
they made it clear they are very aware of the disruptive challenge
of distributed solar power.
More later.

One difference from previous years was questioners from Alabama and Mississippi
in addition to Georgia.
Mary Perez wrote for the Biloxi-Gulfport Sun Herald 21 May 2013,

Mississippi Power could be hot topic at Southern Co. stockholders’ meeting:
Utility shareholders must foot bill for cost overruns,

Questions about the abrupt departure this week of Mississippi Power
President Ed Day are likely to be asked during the annual meeting of
Southern Co. stockholders today in Pine Mountain, Ga.

The meeting will start at 9 a.m. It will not be shown live but video
will be posted later in the day.

Representatives of the Sierra Club said in a conference call Tuesday
they will use the shareholders’ meeting as an opportunity to ask
about the cost overruns at the power plant under construction in
Kemper County and the leadership changes at Mississippi Power.

The meeting actually started as scheduled at 10AM, and I’m still looking

for that video….
More reports will follow.

Update 2013-05-29: SO posted the video,
albeit in a form that doesn’t allow linking to specific sections of it. More reports will follow.

-jsq