Here’s
Southern Company’s own video
of the
22 May 2013 shareholders meeting.
More detail will follow on the record number of questions,
and CEO Tom Fanning’s answers, in addition to this one already posted.
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Author Archives: John S. Quarterman
Judging appointments, grants, and bids @ LCC 2013-05-28
Fast as a speeding “next” until the juvenile court judge
showed up and asked for help getting a grant to save money
by putting fewer children in jail.
One candidate for a board showed up (late) to speak,
and I continue to predict
he’ll be reappointed tonight:
that’s when they vote:
tonight at 5:30PM in the Regular Session.
Meanwhile, here are videos of this morning’s
Lowndes County Commission Work Session.
Here’s the agenda, with a few notes and links to the videos.
LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERSContinue reading
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, TUESDAY, MAY 28, 2013, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, MAY 28, 2013, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor
Juvenile Justice grant would reduce costs more than the grant –Judge Council @ LCC 2013-05-28
Would you rather spend upwards of $91,000 a year to lock up
a juvenile offender or spend less money to prevent that?
Juvenile Court Judge Council advocated the former at this morning’s
Lowndes County Commission Work Session.
6.a. 2013 Juvenile Justice Incentive Grant Program Application
This is about a potential new grant Emergency Director Ashley Tye said he had been working on with Judge Council, applying to the Juvenile Justice Incentive Grant Program which was approved by the legislator and governor this year. (Governor’s Executive Order of 16 April 2013 directing the assembly of the Juvenile Justice Incentive Grant Funding Committee to allocate to counties the funding of $5 million approved by the legislature.) Lowndes County would act as the applicant agent or grant administrator on behalf of the juvenile justice department, and Judge Council would serve as the implementing agency, working with several groups such as LODAC ( Lowndes Drug Action Council, Inc.). If the grant is accepted, it will be awarded quickly, running from June to June. It’s a reimbursement grant: make the expenses, submit a report, and get reimbursed from the grant.
UK biomass plant exploded from Waycross wood pellets
Explosions in Tilbury, England, explosions in Waycross: south Georgia wood pellet dust blowing up here and there and producing CO2 when burned there. Why is “the world’s largest wood pellet plant” a better use of Georgia foresters’ resources than solar farms, which don’t pollute and don’t explode?
Josh Schlossberg wrote for The Biomass Monitor 24 May 2013,
Biomass Industry Plays With Fire, Gets Burned,
A massive fire raged inside wood pellet silos for RWE’s Tilbury Power Station in Essex, UK, on February 27, 2012. The biomass incinerator—the largest in the world at 750 megawatts—had just been converted from coal to woody biomass a month earlier. RWE claims no single cause can be attributed to the fire, but suspects that smoldering wood pellets triggered the dust fire.
In a recent editorial (apparently not online),
Robert Farris
Executive Director of the
Georgia Forestry Commission,
wrote that Georgia has nine wood pellet plants.
He didn’t name them, but
Biomass Magazine has
a list of U.S. wood pellet plants,
including these in Georgia (I added the City column): Continue reading
Owners want out of uranium enrichment company
Maybe Southern Company and Georgia Power should listen to Urenco’s owners:
the nuclear industry is flatlining after Fukushima.
Stanley Reed wrote for Dealbook.Nytimes.com 27 May 2013, Powerhouse of the Uranium Enrichment Industry Seeks an Exit,
Continue readingThe company that operates this uranium enrichment center, Urenco, is the world leader in the field. It is also plumply profitable. So why are its owners eager to sell it?
The answer, as with many things involving nuclear power, is a combination of economics, geopolitics and the Promethean prospect of an energy source that is as potentially green and abundant as deadly dangerous….
Who is the Construction Board of Adjustment and Appeals? @ LCC 2013-05-28
Who will be
appointed tomorrow
to the
Valdosta-Lowndes County Construction Board of Adjustments and Appeals (VLCCBAA),
who’s on it, and what do they do?
Let’s look back a few years. Continue reading
Construction Board of Adjustments and Appeals appointment @ LCC 2013-05-28
GEMA, juvenile justice, mowing, and an appointment to the
Valdosta-Lowndes County Construction Board of Adjustments and Appeals
at Tuesday morning’s Work Session, with voting at 5:30PM
that same evening (tomorrow) in the Regular Session.
Who might they appoint?
Who knows?
They don’t tell the public until they meet.
But I’ll guess they’ll reappoint Randy Crews;
see
other post for why.
Here’s the agenda.
LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERSContinue reading
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, TUESDAY, MAY 28, 2013, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, MAY 28, 2013, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor
China carbon cap and Georgia Power
If China implements a carbon tax, will Georgia Power CEO Paul Bowers
change his recent answer to a question about a carbon tax,
which was “why would anyone want that?”
In February
the Chinese Ministry of Finance (MoF) said China would soon tax
carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions,
and that’s getting closer in
the country whose capital Beijing has smog bad it’s literally off the charts.
Katie Valentine wrote for ThinkProgress 22 May 2013,
Bombshell: China May Be Close To Implementing A Cap On Carbon Pollution,
Continue readingChina is taking steps to tackle its huge carbon output. Today, the country announced the details of its first carbon trading program, which will begin in the city of Shenzhen next month. The southern city is one of seven cities and provinces, including Beijing, which will take part in the pilot program, set to be completely implemented by 2014.
And according to one local news source, China could implement an absolute, nation-wide cap on its carbon emissions by 2016. China’s 21st Century Business Herald reported this week that the country’s State Council still needs to approve the carbon cap proposal submitted by the National Development and Reform Commission, a government entity that controls much of the Chinese economy. The proposal, which the State Council is reportedly likely to support, would ensure China’s emissions would not increase past the country’s target cap, regardless of economic growth — though it’s still unclear what that cap would be. The paper reported that the NDRC also predicts China’s greenhouse gas emissions will peak in 2025, rather than 2030, as earlier predictions stated.
If the cap is adopted,
Monsanto rider came from south Georgia: Jack Kingston GA-01
Jack Kingston (GA-01) slipped the Monsanto rider into a recent law, requiring “the Secretary of Agriculture to grant a temporary permit for the planting or cultivation of a genetically engineered crop, even if a federal court has ordered the planting be halted until an Environmental Impact Statement is completed”.
Alexis Baden-Mayer wrote for AlterNet 8 July 2012, The “Monsanto Rider”: Are Biotech Companies About to Gain Immunity From Federal Law?
Whom do we have to thank for this sneak attack on USDA safeguards? The agricultural sub-committee chair Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) — who not coincidentally was voted “legislator of the year for 2011-2012” by none other than the Biotechnology Industry Organization, whose members include Monsanto and DuPont. As reported by Mother Jones, the Biotechnology Industry Organization declared Kingston a “champion of America’s biotechnology industry” who has “helped to protect funding for programs essential to the survival of biotechnology companies across the United States.”
The Biotechnology Industry Organization’s PR about that award of 24 April 2012 says down at the bottom:
Photos of the award presentation are available upon request.
If that award is such an honor,
why are they hiding the pictures of Jack Kingston receiving it?
If Monsanto’s products are so great, why don’t they label them
so we can tell which they are?
Why did a French court
just uphold a conviction of Monsanto
for poisoning a French farmer?
Why does Monsanto
oppose independent GMO research?
And why did
hundreds of thousands of people just march against Monsanto?
Could it be because of
liver and kidney damage, cancer and birth defects, pollution of water and air,
systematic gaming of the patent system,
perversion of the regulatory system,
and corruption of the legislative system?
Speaking of corruption, Kingston has put the survival of biotechnology companies above the survival of farmers and the health of the American people.
Jack Kingston, voted Biotech “Legislator of the Year.” Responsible for adding the Monsanto Immunity Rider to the farm bill (H.R. 5973, Section 733). Tell him what you think!
www.facebook.coim/jackkingston/, 202-225-5821, 912-352-0101
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Profits also link Vogtle nukes and Kemper coal
Southern Company gets substantial profits from utility customers paying in advance
for “clean coal” in Kemper County, MS and for new nukes at Plant Vogtle
on the Savannah River in Georgia.
As long as SO can keep raking in those profits, it has incentive
not to get on with distributed solar power.
Kristi E. Swartz wrote for the AJC 27 July 2011, Southern Co.’s profits up on nuke finance fees,
A fee added to Georgia Power bills to help finance a planned nuclear plant expansion also helped parent Southern Co. post an 18 percent profit gain in the second quarter.
The $3.73 monthly fee offsets financing costs for two proposed nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle.
Atlanta-based Southern cited it as one of the factors lifting net income to $603.3 million, or 71 cents a share, in the April-June quarter compared with $510.2 million, or 62 cents a share a year earlier. Profits were also helped by a hot early summer, the company said.
Back then SO CEO Tom Fanning said,
“The whole issue is to preserve schedule and costs,” Fanning said.Continue reading