Tag Archives: Coal

Conversation for jobs —Cristobal Serran-Pagan @ VCC 7 April 2011



Dr. Serran-Pagan suggests
we have a conversation among all types of people and do the math.
Let’s put the money where it will produce jobs.
Solar, wind, why haven’t we been doing it?
Real clean renewable sources of energy.
He brings up the water the biomass plant would use.

Water is precious.
Air is precious.
Oil, coal, is not precious.
Biomass is not precious.
We have plenty of good clean, renewable sources of energy.
Let’s do that….
and get rid of old models,
and let’s try to do what is right
for community,
for our economy,
and for public interest.

Here’s

the video:




Conversation for jobs —Cristobal Serran-Pagan @ VCC 7 April 2011

Regular monthly meeting of the Valdosta City Council (VCC),

Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 7 April 2011,

Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq

Big oil tax subsidies: $9 billion / year —API

After last night’s Valdosta City Council meeting,
someone told me he thought all renewable energy sources
required subsidies, and that was the problem.
Well, I think the real problem is the much larger
subsidies to big oil.

Dan Froomkin wrote in huffpo

How The Oil Lobby Greases Washington’s Wheels:



Despite astronomical profits during what have been lean years for
most everyone else, the oil and gas industry continues to benefit from
massive, multi-billion dollar taxpayer subsidies. Opinion polling shows
the American public overwhelmingly wants those subsidies eliminated.

That’s at least $4 billion a year to big oil while Congress debates cutting
Social Security and Medicare and maybe shutting down the government.
According to the American Petroleum Institute (API),

Continue reading →

“I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy.” –Thomas Alva Edison

Sometimes he was a prophet:



“We are like tenant farmers chopping down the fence around our house for
fuel when we should be using Nature’s inexhaustible sources of energy —
sun, wind and tide. … I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What
a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run
out before we tackle that.”

— Thomas Alva Edison talking to Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone in 1931


Source: as quoted in Uncommon Friends : Life with Thomas Edison, Henry
Ford, Harvey Firestone, Alexis Carrel & Charles Lindbergh (1987) by
James Newton, p. 31

-jsq

Current costs of major power sources

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, here are the
current costs of coal, natural gas, nuclear, wind (onshore and offshore),
solar (electrical and hot water), geothermal, biomass, and hydroelectric:


Here’s a four page explanation of that table.

Coal is not the cheapest: natural gas is.
Onshore wind actually costs about the same as coal, and less than nuclear.
Offshore wind is currently about 2.5 times more expensive.

Solar photovoltaic (PV) currently costs a bit more than twice as much as coal,
and already less than offshore wind.

The table does not take into account the environmental costs
of the various power sources, or obviously coal would fare far worse,
and biomass would not be rated anywhere near as good as wind.

Remember, the cost of solar is

falling rapidly,
so solar will rapidly become more cost-effective compared to other
energy sources.

-jsq

Offshore wind energy cheaper than nuclear –EU climate chief



Inland south Georgia doesn’t have much wind, probably not enough
to generate significant electricity, but wind farms off the Georgia coast
could.
Now we hear fromm Zachary Shahan in Clean Technica that

Offshore Wind Energy Cheaper than Nuclear Energy, EU Climate Chief Says:

EU climate chief Connie Hedegaard has added that offshore wind energy is cheaper than nuclear.

…

“Some people tend to believe that nuclear is very, very cheap, but
offshore wind is cheaper than nuclear,”

He’s picking up the story from the Guardian, in which

Fiona Harvey and Terry Macalister wrote 17 March 2011:

Continue reading →

Georgia Power plans to decertify two coal plants



According to gapower’s own press release:

ATLANTA, March 16, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Georgia Power expects to request
approval from the Georgia Public Service Commission to decertify two
coal-generating units totaling 569 megawatts, the company announced
Wednesday.



The request to decertify units 1 and 2 at Plant Branch in Putnam Co. will
be included in Georgia Power’s updated Integrated Resource Plan filing
with the commission in late summer. The company expects to ask for
decertification of the units as of the effective dates of the Georgia
Multipollutant Rule, which are currently anticipated to be Dec. 31,
2013 for unit 1 and Oct. 1, 2013 for unit 2.

The decision to decertify the units is based on a need to install
environmental controls to meet a variety of existing and expected
environmental regulations.

“After an extensive analysis of the cost to comply with environmental
regulations, we have determined the continued operation of these units
would be uneconomical for our customers,” said Georgia Power President
and CEO Paul Bowers. “This decision is in keeping with our focus to
provide affordable and reliable electricity for our customers.”

This matches with

a report from last July that gapower was turning away from coal.
And they

suspended work on Plant Branch a year ago.
Unfortunately, mostly they’re turning to natural gas and nuclear.

Continue reading →

Sunshot: solar cheaper than coal in six years



Solar is expensive at the moment, but that could change rapidly.
David Biello

writes in Scientific American yesterday:

The U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) aims to change that by bringing
down the cost of solar electricity via a new program dubbed “SunShot,”
an homage to President John Kennedy’s “moon shot” pledge in 1961.

“If you can get solar electricity down at [$1 per watt], and it scales
without subsidies, gosh, I think that’s pretty good for the climate,”
notes Arun Majumdar, director of the Advanced Research Projects
Agency–Energy (ARPA–e), the DoE’s high-risk research effort. “With
SunShot, the goal is to reduce the cost of solar to [$1 per watt] in
the next six years.”

Hm, so maybe
Ray Kurzweil is right.

DoE Secretary Chu even thinks we could win something else:

“Just because we lost the lead doesn’t mean we can’t get it back,”
Chu said. “We still have the opportunity to lead the world in clean
energy…but time is running out.”

Meanwhile, we could
shift fossil fuel subsidies over to solar
and get on with it.

-jsq

The politics of climate change denial

Why do some people deny the overwhelming science of climate
change in a time when the evidence and analysis is so thorough
and so conclusive that no reputable scientific organization
in the world doubts any longer that humans are changing the climate
of the whole planet for the worse:
because it threatens their political and economic beliefs.

Naomi Klein: Why Climate Change Is So Threatening to Right-Wing Ideologues:



And the reason is that climate change is now seen as an identity issue
on the right. People are defining themselves, like they’re against
abortion, they don’t believe in climate change. It’s part of who
they are.

It’s like denying the earth goes around the sun.
Why would they identify with such a silly thing?
Because of what actually dealing with climate change would mean:

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Pro-Coal Electric Co Exec indicted



Sue Sturgis writes in Facing South,

Corruption scandal casts shadow over Georgia coal plant projects:

The leader of a metro Atlanta electric co-op was indicted last week on
31 counts of criminal wrongdoing, heightening concerns about planned
coal-fired power plants that he’s played a key role in promoting.

Dwight Brown (in mugshot), president and CEO of Cobb Electric Membership
Corp., faces 16 counts of theft, three counts of racketeering, 10
counts of making false statements, and one count each of conspiracy to
defraud the Cobb County government and the Cobb County school district,
according to the Marietta Daily Journal. Brown’s attorney says his client
is innocent.

Innocent until proven guilty, and it will be interesting to see how this
plays out.

-jsq

Seth Gunning LTE in the VDT

This is the text of Seth Gunning’s letter to the editor that the Valdosta Daily Times printed on 20 Dec 2010. Here’s video of the referenced
air quality permit hearing.
-jsq



Recently on Thursday December 16th, State Judge Ronit Walker denied
air quality permits for a proposed coal plant in Sandersville, Georgia.
Judge Walker cited the Georgia Environmental Protection Divisions failure
to properly review permits, and their lack of enforcement of basic Clean
Air Act standards for several hazardous emissions.

Flashback to April 27th in Valdosta Georgia when Environmental Protection
Division Air Branch Manager Eric Cornwell openly admitted to having NOT
READ the air permit application for Wiregrass Biomass LLC’s proposal to
build a hotly contested 40mw power plant&emdash; during a Valdosta EPD hearing
meant to evaluate those permits.

Today, the Valdosta Industrial Authority is hazardously entrenched

Continue reading →