Category Archives: Economy

Why are we running a family owned business out of business? –Steve Parker @ LCC 2013-05-28

Private citizen Steve Parker spoke up as a satisfied customer of Deep South Sanitation, and a dissatisfied former customer of the other trash company, wondering “What’s wrong with competition?” in yesterday’s Regular Session of the Lowndes County Commission.

Steve Parker Mr. Raines said it beautifully, wanting freedom in his prayer. I agree with him, wanting the freedom to make a choice, so I hired Deep South. Now I’m told that it’s been the position of the board to dismantle Deep South, to tell him to cease and desist, and to take away his business license which he got from the previous board. I know a lot of you inherited this issue, by the way. But at the same time, what is the greater good being served to the county? Why are we taking a family owned business and running them out of business in effect?

What’s wrong with competition? I’m in the financial business and if somebody would give me an exclusive to every client in Lowndes County that would be a pretty good day for me.

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Kemper Coal Crashes Southern Company Rating and Stock Price

Standard & Poor’s lowered Southern Company’s rating from stable to negative because of the risks of Kemper Coal in Mississippi, and SO’s stock price plummetted. This was immediately after activists grilled SO on that and other topics at the SO stockholder meeting. Wait ’till S&P catches on to the risks of SO’s 19-months-late and $1 billion-over-budget nukes at Plant Vogtle in Georgia! Or SO’s non-action so far on the challenge of distributed solar.

Kristin Jones wrote for WSJ 24 May 2013, S&P Lowers Outlook on Southern Co., Noting Project Risks,

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Video of Southern Company shareholders meeting @ SO 2013-05-22

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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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,

The 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….

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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?”

Paul Bowers speaking 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,

China 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,

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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.
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Kemper Coal: SO’s bitter pill @ SO 2013-05-22

“Corporate responsiblity,” answered Southern Company CEO Thomas A. Fanning to questions about Kemper Coal from Linda St. Martin of Mississippians For Affordable Energy. I don’t think that word means what he thinks it means.

Ray Henry wrote for AP yesterday, Southern Co. CEO defends Miss. power project,

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Sierra Club goes to Southern Company stockholder meeting

“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. SO CEO Tom Fanning 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,

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Nuclear reactor percent power from NRC data

Do nuclear reactors really deliver dependable baseload capacity? I hear industry execs say 99.99% uptime. The real average from seven years of NRC data for 104 reactors is 88.13%.

Vogtle 1 According to Power Reactor Status Reports posted online by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, here are the actual percent power percentages over time for the 104 listed nuclear power reactors. The timeframe is 31 March 2006 through today, 21 May 2013. (The NRC data appears to go back to 1999, but seven years is a good sample to start with.) The computation for each reactor is the sum of the uptime percentages for each day divided by the number of days. The total uptime is the sum of the reactor uptimes divided by the number of reactors. Here’s the list, sorted two ways:

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