Category Archives: Renewable Energy

Nuke overruns already causing distributed solar in south Georgia

People are tired of

irresponsible trash government at the state level
colluding with monopoly utilities to hold Georgia back in distributed
solar power, and some of us are doing something about it;
you can, too.


Jigar Shah
wrote for SaportReport 15 September 2013

Solar more viable as Georgia’s new nuclear power plants face overruns,

I am seeing Georgia’s nuclear financial woes starting to prompt a
boon for distributed energy including solar, wind, biomass,
geothermal, low-impact hydro, high efficiency cogeneration, and
other sources of electricity.

Biomass?

Let’s not go back to that carbon-polluting forest-destroying factory-exploding waste of time and resources.
Solar, wind, efficiency, and conservation are the main events, with solar increasingly leading the pack.
And those nuke cost overruns are already driving solar up even faster: Continue reading →

GA PSC abdicates cost oversight for new nukes at Plant Vogtle

Finish it and then send we the taxpayers and ratepayers a bill?
What kind of deal is that?
So Southern Company already
dodged a Fitch downgrade by delaying
a decision, and now GA PSC wants to put it off for years more.
That also delays solar deployment in Georgia, putting us still farther behind.

Ray Henry wrote for AP yesterday,

Ga. approves deal on nuclear plant costs,



A debate over the rising cost of building a nuclear power plant in
Georgia will be delayed for years under an agreement approved
Tuesday by Georgia’s utility regulators.

The elected members of Georgia’s Public Service Commission
unanimously approved a deal that will put off a decision on whether
Georgia Power can raise its budget for building two more nuclear
reactors at Plant Vogtle (VOH’-gohl) until the first of those
reactors is finished. An independent state monitor has estimated the
first reactor will be finished in January 2018 at the earliest.

Regulators will continue monitoring company spending but will not
make a decision on raising the bottom line budget figure.

So GA PSC will keep watching costs run over budget but will do nothing
about it.

Oh, wait, it’s actually worse: Continue reading →

Bloomberg illustrates 63% solar growth in 2012

A graph Bloomberg New Energy Finance posted illustrates
the recent 60%+ growth deployed solar capacity, but
BNEF fails to project solar’s compound interest growth forward.


Look at the solar numbers in that graph:

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
1.6 2.0 2.9 4.9 8.0
Change 25% 45% 69% 63%



Then look at that last row I added, which is each year’s
percentage increase over the previous year, as in
8.0 for 2012 divided by 4.9 for 2011 = 1.63 or 63%.
Slightly more for the previous year, and less in years before that.
In other words, the annual compound growth rate for solar is
around the 65% rate reported

by the solar industry.

And slightly higher than the 60.9% FERC rate I used Continue reading →

Pull out your phone, MacGyver, and take a picture of cars powered by rooftop solar



MacGyver needs to show an imprint on a floorboard to someone. Pull
out your phone and take a picture! No, in 1986

he MacGyvers a chisel
and hammer and pries the floorboard up.



Even in 1996 the telcos and most of the public thought

dedicated copper and fiber connections were needed for reliable communications.
(“Allison, can you explain what the Internet is?”)



But now you can pull out your phone and take a picture and post it over the packet-switched Internet to facebook for all the world to see.



In 2023 baseload nukes and coal plants and oil pipelines will be like
phone booths connected by dedicated copper, while rooftop solar charging
cars will be as common as phones in your pockets.
Solar power will win like the Internet did,
beating all other sources of power within a decade.



Meanwhile, Continue reading →

Entergy shutting down Vermont Yankee nuke: tenth down or never to be built in past year

As Entergy

has been preparing to do for some time,
it’s down forever for Vermont Yankee.
That’s at least ten (10) down forever
(Vermont Yankee,
Kewaunee,
Crystal River 3,
San Onofre 2 and 3)
or never to be built
(Calvert Cliffs 3,

South Texas Nuclear Project 3 and 4,
Bellefonte,
and

Levy County)
in the past year.
How many will it take before Southern Company (or more likely GA PSC
or even the Georgia legislature)
realizes

new nukes make no financial sense
and terminates the Plant Vogtle 3 and 4 boondoggle on the Savannah River?

Entergy blamed Vermont Yankee on shale gas, but you ain’t seen nothing yet, as

Moore’s Law for solar really kicks in.
Next one to go: I say
Entergy’s often-down Pilgrim 1 in Massachusetts;
everything Entergy said about Vermont Yankee applies in spades to Pilgrim 1.
Or maybe

ten-times-down-this-year Palisades.
Or bouncy man-killer

Arkansas Nuclear One.
So many to choose from!

Entergy PR on Market Watch today,

Entergy to Close, Decommission Vermont Yankee
–Decision driven by sustained low power prices, high cost structure and wholesale electricity market design flaws for Vermont Yankee plant –Focus to remain on safety during remaining operation and after shutdown,

NEW ORLEANS, Aug. 27, 2013 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ — Entergy


Corporation ETR -0.21% today said it plans to close and decommission
its Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station in Vernon, Vt. The station
is expected to cease power production after its current fuel cycle
and move to safe shutdown in the fourth quarter of 2014. The station
will remain under the oversight of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
throughout the decommissioning process.

“This was an agonizing decision and Continue reading →

Solar power will win like the Internet did

Remember BITNET, FidoNet, or UUCP?
Nope, the Internet overtook all of those.
And in 20 years that’s how young people will remember coal and natural gas plants,
although the waste-disposal costs of nukes will be with us for ten thousand years.
Solar power is going to overtake all other power sources within a decade.
Here’s why I think that.

Jerry Grillo quoted me in Georgia Trend July 2013,

Sun Dancing: As Georgia’s solar capacity shoots skyward, a new state utility is proposed,



“Solar power is the fastest-growing industry in the world, and
it’s growing along in the same way the Internet did,” says
John S. Quarterman, a Harvard-educated author and Internet pioneer
who launched the first commercial online newsletter, among other
things, and who lives in rural Lowndes County.

“Think back 20 years to 1993. How many people had heard of the
Internet? And look at how far we’ve come. What I’m seeing with solar
energy is the same kind of exponential growth. It’s clean energy
that works, and it generates jobs.”

Here are 1992 ten-year graphs of Internet
growth from that newsletter, Matrix News,
using Continue reading →

AGL pipeline station in Atlanta leaking, eroding, substandard construction

Citizens are calling for GA PSC Chuck Eaton to call it off.
Since apparently

GA PSC does have authority over natural gas pipelines,
maybe we should talk to our Commissioner
H. Doug Everett about that

proposed Sabal Trail natural gas pipeline through Lowndes County.
Wasting resources on natural gas now is foolish when

solar will overtake everything within a decade
and we should be getting on with sun power for Lowndes County
instead of methane for Florida.

Brookhaven Post 23 August 2013,

Deteriorating conditions at AGL regulator station site has citizens calling for its removal,



An Atlanta Gas Light (AGL) regulator station that is being
constructed on Parcel 36 off of Clairmont Rd., has been a project of
concern for some time now. Site conditions such as trenches full of
water, deteriorating banks, eroding foundations, corrosion,
substandard and hazardous construction practices, and a host of
other issues, have become the catalyst to amplifying an effort to
have Public Service Commissioner, Chuck Eaton, intervene and ask
that AGL cease construction and remove the station.

-jsq

Solar will overtake everything –FERC Chair Jon Wellinghof

“Everybody’s roof is out there,” for solar power,
so natural gas or oil pipelines are a waste of time.


Solar prices dropping exponentially drive solar deployment up like compound interest, eventually onto everybody’s rooftops,
where eventually means in about a decade,
after which we’ll be ramping down natural gas like we’re already ramping down coal.
It’s time for Georgia Power and Southern Company and all of Georgia’s EMCs
to get on with solar and stop wasting resources on dead ends,
especially that bad idea of fifty years ago, nuclear power.

Herman K. Trabish wrote for Green Tech Media yesterday,

FERC Chair Jon Wellinghoff: Solar ‘Is Going to Overtake Everything’:
One of the country’s top regulators explains why he is so bullish on solar.

“Solar is growing so fast it is going to overtake
everything,” Wellinghoff told GTM last week in a sideline
conversation at the National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas.

If a single drop of water on the pitcher’s mound at Dodger Stadium
is doubled every minute, Wellinghoff said, a person chained to the
highest seat would be in danger of drowning in an hour.

“That’s what is happening in solar. It could double every two
years,” he said.

Indeed, as GTM Research’s MJ Shiao recently pointed out, in the next
2 1/2 years the U.S. will Continue reading →

Japanese solar grid

After Fukushima, Japan is now serious about solar power.
From Miyama, Fukuoka (pictured), in the south of Honshu to northerly Hokkaido,
Japan is building solar power plants,
and now needs to upgrade its grid.
Rooftop solar doesn’t need as many grid changes, since it delivers
onsite at peak load.
Hey, here’s an idea: solar panels on unused industrial park areas!

Yvonne Chang wrote for National Geographic 14 August 2013,

Japan Solar Energy Soars, But Grid Needs to Catch Up,




Japan’s renewable energy incentive law has spurred construction of so many photovoltaic farms like this one, in Miyama, that the nation is expected to be the world’s leading solar energy market this year. But Japan must upgrade its system for delivering electricity.

Photograph from Asahi Shimbun/Getty Images

A new renewable energy incentive program has Japan on track to
become the world’s leading market for solar energy, leaping past
China and Germany, with Hokkaido at the forefront of the sun power
rush. In a densely populated nation hungry for alternative energy,
Hokkaido is an obvious choice to host projects, because of the
availability of relatively large patches of inexpensive land. Unused
industrial
park
 areas, idle land
inside a
motor race circuit,
a former horse ranch—all
are being converted to solar farms. (See related, ”
Pictures:
A New Hub for Solar Tech Blooms in Japan
.”)

But
there’s a problem with this boom in Japan’s north. Although
one-quarter of the largest solar projects approved under Japan’s
new renewables policy are located in Hokkaido, the island accounts
for less than 3 percent of the nation’s electricity demand. Experts
say Japan will need to act quickly to make sure the power generated
in Hokkaido flows to where it is needed. And that means modernizing
a grid that currently doesn’t have capacity for all the projects
proposed, installing a giant battery—planned to be the world’s
largest—to store power when the sun isn’t shining, and ensuring
connections so power can flow across the island nation. (See related, ”
In
Japan, Solar Panels Aid in Tsunami Rebuilding
.”)


Turning to Renewables

Japan
historically has had no fossil energy sources of its own; it
powered much of its economic growth over the past few generations
with homegrown nuclear energy. At the start of 2011, more than 50
reactors provided Japan with 30 percent of its electricity, and the
plan was to increase that share to 50 percent. That scenario was
upended on March 11, 2011, when the most powerful earthquake ever
to shake Japan touched off a tsunami that breached the defenses of
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on the east coast. (See related, ”
One
Year After Fukushima, Japan Faces Shortages of
Energy, Trust
.”)

The second-worst Continue reading →

PR and Marketing materials, ads, and trips @ VLCIA 2013-08-20



One hopes all this PR and marketing pays off in jobs.
Remember, the Industrial Authority has kept its cushy
1 mil of property tax throughout the economic downturn.
Four new industry projects are on the agenda this time,
plus more solar power at Valdosta’s Mud Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant.
Much better PR than
Valdosta Fire Dept. helping put out Perma-Fix on fire.

Here’s
the agenda

in a slightly broken PDF on the VLCIA website
and extracted below.

Continue reading →