Category Archives: Coal

Cobb EMC backing off of coal at Plant Washington

Could Plant Ben Hill be next?

Kim Isaza wrote for MDJOnline yesterday,

Cobb EMC’s pursuit cools on coal-fired power plant

Cobb EMC’s interest in building the coal-fired Plant Washington


appears to be dead, and the company has begun soliciting bids for
its future power supplies.

The electric cooperative has already spent $13.5 million toward
permitting for the coal plant, which would be a new direction for
the company from simply delivering electricity to also generating
it.

On Jan. 24, Dean Alford, a spokesman for the Power 4 Georgians
consortium of EMCs behind Plant Washington, is slated to address the
Cobb EMC board, presumably in an effort to save the plant, for which
his company, Allied Energy, got a no-bid development contract from
P4G.

The Cobb EMC board could decide at that meeting whether to put any
more money toward the project.

Many details of the 850-megawatt Plant Washington, including exactly
why it is needed and any firm idea of what it will cost to build and
operate, have been kept quiet, sparking critical questions from EMC
members and environmental groups. It was proposed under former EMC
head Dwight Brown, who is facing 34 criminal charges of theft and
racketeering relating to his leadership at EMC.

So can somebody come up with an 850 MW solar plant to propose by 24 Jan 2012?

-jsq

Southern Company claims to be incompetent regarding new EPA rules

Why can’t Southern Company do what other power companies can do
in implementing the new coal plant pollution control rules EPA
is about to promulgate?



Elizabeth Shogren wrote for NPR today,

EPA To Unveil Stricter Rules For Power Plants.
She described new rules for coal plants EPA is going to release in the next
few weeks, including controls on mercury, “arsenic, acid gases and other pollutants.”
Southern Company doesn’t like that.

“It’s physically impossible to build the controls, the generation, the


transmission and the pipelines needed in three years,” says Anthony
Topazi, chief operating officer for Southern Company, which provides
electricity to nearly 4 million homes and hundreds of thousands of
businesses in the Southeast.

Topazi says electricity rates will go up, putting marginal companies out
of business. He says unless his company gets six years, it will not be
able to keep the lights on.

“We will experience rolling blackouts or rationing power if we don’t
have simply the time to comply,” Topazi says.

Other power companies see no problem:

Continue reading →

No coal plant in Early County: LS Power withdraws all permit requests

Persistence by the local community
and environmental groups has paid off in Early County, Georgia:
the company that wanted to build a coal plant there has given up.

Press release from GreenLaw, 6 December 2011,

Longleaf Defeat Marks End to Nation’s Longest Running Fight Against Coal Plant: Agreement Marks Milestone of 160 Coal Plants Canceled,

The country’s longest-running campaign against construction of a new


coal plant ended today as LS Power, a New Jersey-based power company,
announced that it will cancel plans to build the Longleaf Energy Station
in Blakely, GA. Sierra Club, Friends of the Chattahoochee and GreenLaw
have been organizing against the Longleaf coal plant since it was first
proposed in 2001. This victory comes as part of a legal agreement between
LS Power and Sierra Club.

This victory marks the 160th proposed coal plant canceled since
Sierra Club launched its Beyond Coal campaign in 2005. This victory is
particularly noteworthy because the struggle lasted for a decade and
involved numerous hearings and appeals, and sustained local opposition by
hundreds of Georgia residents. Longleaf was one of the very first plants
proposed when, in 2001, the coal industry attempted to block clean energy
development by building more than 150 new coal plants across the US,
a move which would have effectively locked the nation into dependence
on coal-fired electricity for the foreseeable future. Longleaf was one
of the last remaining new coal projects proposed anywhere in the United
States, counting 160 proposals that have now been defeated or abandoned
in the past decade.

Several times over the past decade it looked like LS Power would move

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Cobb EMC incumbent concedes election: insurgents win 4 for 4

Last week,

3 out of 4 insurgent candidates won places on the board of Cobb EMC,


the utility that wants to build a coal plant in Ben Hill County,
as close to here for smoke drift as the Okefenokee.
Another was headed to a runoff that would have cost around $70,000.
Not anymore! It’s 4 for 4.

Janel Davis wrote for the AJC yesterday,

Cobb EMC incumbent concedes election,

Kennesaw businessman and incumbent Cobb EMC director RJ Patel conceded the race for his board seat Monday evening eliminating a need for a runoff next month and advancing four new members to lead the utility.



That means

Charles Malcolm ‘Cooter’ Swanson
is the new Area 7 board member.

The new members are still a minority of 4 out of 10 on the Cobb EMC board,
but that’s better than 0 out of 10.

-jsq

PS: Owed to Ellen Corrie and
No Coal Plant in Ben Hill County!

Cobb EMC members win board election in landslide



Cobb EMC wants to build a coal plant in Ben Hill County,
about as far from here as the smoke blows as the Okefenokee Swamp.
They’ve run into some resistance at the polls.

Tod Rehm wrote for Peach Pundit 12 November 2011,

CobbEMC Owners Association 3 for 4 with one runoff in board elections

The



CobbEMC Owners Association, a group of customers dedicated to the
reform of the EMC’s Board of Directors has made great steps in returning
control of the utility to its customers. CEOA-endorsed candidates took
three out of four seats today, with the fourth candidate narrowly missing
a majority with 49.47% of votes cast.

Only 1.3% of eligible customers voted, with 2471 votes being cast. Winners
were:

Area 1, Ed Crowell 79%

Area 6, David Tennant 68%

Area 10, Cheryl Meadows 80%

Hm, 4 to 1 odds!
That reminds me of

another recent election.
Apparently when the people get organized fat cats can lose big.
Cobb EMC’s incumbents already

lost a special election back in September,
that one about mail-in voting.

About the Cobb EMC runoff,
Kim Isaza wrote for MDJonline.com today,

EMC members elect 3 new directors; Area 7 goes to runoff

Continue reading →

Yes, I do have solar

Here’s my LTE in the VDT today. -jsq

A letter last week asked, “Do you have solar energy yourself?” Why yes, I do.


When we installed solar panels on our farm workshop in 2009,
the closest certified solar installer was in Marietta.
There were only four in the state. Now there are forty.
Georgia may yet catch up with North Carolina and even New Jersey!

Hannah Solar had all the paperwork ready when

Okra Paradise Farms
applied for a USDA REAP grant for more solar panels a few weeks ago.
Much to our surprise,

Continue reading →

To the people of Valdosta and South Georgia —Occupy Valdosta

Posted today in

Occupy Valdosta’s facebook page:

To the people of Valdosta and South Georgia



We, the local citizens occupying Valdosta, urge you to assert your power.


Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; to nonviolently occupy
public space;
to create an open process to address the problems we face, and to generate
solutions accessible to everyone.

Our issues are varied, yet related.

We seek

Continue reading →

Do you have solar energy yourself? Why yes, yes, I do

Grady Blankenship wrote a LTE in the VDT Wednesday, in which he asked
“do you have solar energy yourself?”
Why yes, yes, I do.
And I have some questions for everyone at the end.

Back

in 2009 we installed solar panels on our farm workshop.


At the time the closest certified solar installer I could find was in Marietta.
Four years ago there were 4 in the state.
now there are forty.
And that’s in a state that’s trailing

North Carolina
and even

New Jersey
in solar installations.

Also, I applied some weeks back for a USDA REAP grant for solar
for Okra Paradise Farms.


Much to our surprise, last week we

Continue reading →

Gov. Deal: the ugly on energy

Gov. Nathan Deal said he’s a free-enterprise person and doesn’t


want to subsidize renewable energy, but he maybe doesn’t know
that the state of Georgia subsidizes Georgia Power’s new nuclear
plants through an indirect tax, and that fossil fuels are far
more subsidized than renewable energy.
That plus the chickens.

Continuing
Gov. Deal: the good, the ugly, and the bad on prisons,
quoting again from
David Rodock’s interview with Gov. Nathan Deal

in today’s VDT.

The Ugly

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Cobb EMC loses special election by huge margin



Cobb EMC lost a

court-ordered special election yesterday by 2561 to 1113,
according to

Take Back Cobb EMC’s facebook page.
That was the vote against mail-in voting,
because the insurgents believe mail-in voting helps incumbent directors win
re-election.
It’s Cobb EMC’s incumbent directors who want to build a coal plant in
Ben Hill County,
about 70 miles north of here.

MJDOnline explained the issues 14 September 2011,

Don McKee: Decision day comes Saturday for Cobb EMC members

There are two questions in the form of proposed bylaw amendments to be
decided by members Saturday: (1) whether to allow mail-in voting for
directors, and (2) whether to prohibit payment of retirement benefits
to directors.

Reform groups Cobb EMC Owners Association, Take Back Cobb EMC and Cobb
EMC Watch strongly oppose allowing mail-in voting until new directors
are elected. They argue that mail-in voting would give an overwhelming
advantage to incumbent directors with unlimited EMC member funds at
their disposal in campaigning for re-election versus the very limited
funds available to challengers.



“The historical evidence of mail-in voting shows that it favors the
incumbents over challengers,” Cobb EMC Watch says. “It gives the
corporation tremendous leverage to manipulate and influence the voting
process. The corporation can use its much greater financial resources
to back its slate of candidates.”

One would guess the second item on the ballot passed:

Continue reading →