What Jon Wellinghoff predicted a year ago is starting to filter
into the news media: solar is going to win, and very quickly.
Welcome to a sunny world!
Tom Randall, Bloomberg, 29 October 2014, While You Were Getting Worked Up Over Oil Prices, This Just Happened to Solar,
After years of struggling against cheap natural gas prices and variable subsidies, solar electricity is on track Continue reading
OPEC just pushed down oil and gas prices,
and the main beneficiary will be Russia.
U.S. and other sanctions to punish Russia for invading Ukraine
already pushed the ruble down, which makes Russian fracking
less exposed to this price drop.
Natural gas prices are falling with oil prices.
So a big winner could be Siberian natural gas fracking for China.
Which could nip U.S. LNG exports at their budding export terminals.
Since LNG export is the most profitable market for fracked methane,
the pipeline craze could go bust.
And that could help the U.S. get on with cheaper, faster, safer, and far
cleaner solar power.
Will Kennedy and Jillian Ward, Bloomberg, 27 November 2014, OPEC Policy Ensures U.S. Shale Crash, Russian Tycoon Says, Continue reading
Andrea Grover’s response to being caught by the VDT actually knowing about Sabal Trail threats of eminent domain after she said were “hard to believe” is… to use the VDT to threaten eminent domain!
The example
the VDT quoted Wednesday
of an eminent domain threatening letter from Sabal Trail’s
Atlanta law firm was dated 26 November 2013.
Yet a year later, today, 28 November 2014, Joe Adgie in
Sabal Trail to install taps in Georgia
quotes Ms. Grover in the VDT: Continue reading
Complete agenda? Maps? Election process? Calendar? But few people were there to notice these things missing.
At the Work Session we had all maps and things to show you, but between then and now the digital copies have vanished off of both laptops. And we are sort of at a loss as to where they went but they’re gone. So if you’ll use the maps that are in your packet and perhaps some memory from the Work Session discussion….
That’s right, staff lost the digital copies of an agenda item, CU-2014-11 Normal Life of Georgia. Board packets on the county’s website would serve as a backup for copies on planners’ laptops.
Gretchen, who was there, reports further below, including a note about that charming young white man recently appointed to the Planning Commission. -jsq
At a brief and poorly attended GLPC meeting, Continue reading
Who exactly is “hard to believe”?
Joe Adgie, VDT, today, 26 November 2014, Residents share eminent domain letters,
Letters submitted to the Valdosta Daily Times and to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission could contradict a recent statement by Sabal Trail’s Andrea Grover.
Continue reading
Escalating from the Chairman’s letter of 11 April 2014, perhaps after listening to requests from citizens, the Lowndes County Commission passed a resolution wanting no part of Sabal Trail in the county or in the state of Georgia.
Update 2014-11-25: Well, according to Joe Adgie in the Valdosta Daily Times today, “Even though the missive has already been mailed [to FERC], the resolution will not be formally voted on until the county commission’s next meeting in December [9th].”
Filed with FERC in docket CP15-17 on 21 November 2014 as Accession Number: 20141121-5242, but that was a Friday and FERC doesn’t work on weekends, so it actually appeared Monday 24 November 2014.
RESOLUTION
WHEREAS, Spectra Energy of Houston, Texas has proposed to build a $3.7 Billion, 460mile natural gas line known as Sabal Trail, and;
WHEREAS, The Lowndes County Board of Commissioners has concerns regarding personal property rights Continue reading
Thanks to the City of Valdosta for the agenda for tonight’s Planning Commission meeting. It’s all small cases, but how would you know whether one of them might affect you, since Lowndes County still doesn’t post Planning Commission agendas or minutes or board packets? And is there a second page? If the county did post these agendas regularly on their own website, this sort of omission would be less likely to occur.
Greater Lowndes Planning CommissionContinue readingLowndes County City of Valdosta City of Dasher City of Hahira City of Lake Park
REGULAR MONTHLY MEETING
AGENDA
Lowndes County South Health District Administrative Office
325 West Savannah AvenueMonday, November 24, 2014* 5:30 P.M. * Public Hearing
The alleged “Project Need” in
Sabal Trail’s Friday FERC docket CP15-17 permit application
to get eminent domain for its 100-foot-wide gouge for a yard-wide hazardous fracked methane pipeline is: Sabal Trail claims it has contracts to sell the gas.
Let’s apply that logic to Sabal Trail co-owner FPL’s headquarters.
This is FPL headquarters at 700 Universe Blvd., Juno Beach, Florida, in the Palm Beach County Property Appraiser’s map: Continue reading
Update 2014-11-21: Brad Shealy from the District Attorney’s office called back. The reason there was no decision at day before yesterday’s Grand Jury meeting was there were no applicants. He said qualifications include you must be 18, a high school graduate, and a property owner, presumably meaning real estate. Plus you have to go to Tifton or Athens for a 40 hour course. Which he said is better than it used to be when the only location for the course was Athens: Tifton is close enough to drive up and back daily. If you want to serve, please contact the Clerk of Court (see below for her number).
When will new members be appointed to the Board of Equalization, who are the candidates, and how are people to know? Maybe you’d like to volunteer. If so, send your resume to the Clerk of Court (not the County Clerk). Apparently you have about two weeks.
As public comment on facebook by Becky Vaughn Herndon today:
Lowndes County is looking for volunteers to be members of the Board of Equalization (BOE). The purpose of the BOE is to hear property tax disputes between the Lowndes County Board of Assessors (BOA) and property owners. The board must not be biased towards the Lowndes County Assessor’s office or the taxpayer. It hears evidence from both sides and decides, based on the evidence presented, what the value of the contested property should be. The board may:
- Find the Continue reading
We are all Indians to the fossil fuel cowboys, but this time the Indians won. The U.S. Senate yesterday rejected the Keystone XL pipeline. It won’t end there, but it should, because solar power is cheaper, faster, cleaner, and actually does bring jobs to the U.S.
Picture from US Uncut
Of course, TransCanada has a backup plan for getting its dirty Alberta tar sands oil to overseas market: a pipeline entirely through Canada to New Brunswick. Which means the past several years of TransCanada insistence that Keystone XL was necessary was just so much bs. Which indicates how much we should believe other Keystone XL claims, such as those about jobs the pipeline would supposedly create.
Source: Reuters
Angelo Young, International Business Times, 8 October 2014, No Keystone XL Pipeline? No Problem, Says Canadian Firm Planning To Send Crude East Instead Of South, Continue reading