Tag Archives: Economy

Energy experts making excuses for fracking

Numerous eminent current and former regulators, governors,
and legislators’ best advice for how to keep fracking from
polluting our aquifers and drinking water: “strict regulation”.
As Gandhi reputedly said about western civilization: that would be a good idea.
But in Georgia and many other places, where the regulatory agency
(GA PSC) and the legislature are pretty much captured by the utilities
they pretend to regulate, how will we get that “strict regulation”?

This was at a Politico event, sponsored by American Wind Power,
called Energy & the Presidency.

Join POLITICO for a lunch conversation with energy experts and
policy leaders

Energy & the Presidency panel
as they discuss current energy legislation, the
energy debates facing the nation, policy options and what’s ahead in
the year to come. Speakers include: ClearView Energy Partners’ Kevin
Book; former Administrator of the EPA and former Director of the
White House Office on Climate Change, Carol Browner; Rep. Ed Markey
(Mass.); former Gov. Bill Richardson (NM) and former Gov. Bill
Ritter (Colo.).

When: Wednesday, September 5, 2012 at 12:00 pm ET



This event was in North Carolina, where the late John Blackburn, Ph.D.
already reported two years ago that

the whole state could be powered by wind, sun, existing hydro, landfill gas, and less natural gas than is already in use,
why do we need fracking at all?

Georgia has similar real renewable energy potential,
plus studies by

Georgia Tech
and Duke
indicate that Georgia doesn’t need any additional total electric power
anyway, if it gets on with energy efficiency.
Add

solar and

wind instead of natural gas, and we can retire a lot of
coal plants.
With no need for fracking.

I have an idea:
let’s elect Public Service Commissioners and legislators who are not
beholden to the utilities they will regulate!

-jsq

New NRC head says agency is standing up for public health and safety

Sounds to me like the NRC is not telling its new chief everything.
For example, what about

Vogtle unit 1 shutting down right after it passed
an NRC review?
What about

cancer in Shell Bluff, Georgia, near the reactors?



Mike M. Ahlers wrote for CNN 14 August 2012,

New NRC chair vouches for agency’s independence, states goals

Allison Macfarlane said Tuesday she has confidence in the agency and
its independence from the nation’s 104 commercial nuclear power
plants.

“I have some strong initial impressions of the agency, and one is
that I’ve been very impressed with the staff and their dedication to
safety, and their willingness to stand up to industry when they
believe a situation is not safe,” Macfarlane said in a wide-ranging
discussion with reporters.



“So I’m actually quite assured that the agency is completing its
mission of protecting public health and safety,” she said. “They
take safety issues very seriously. They take their role as
regulators very seriously and the public should be assure that they
have the public’s best interests in mind.”



Macfarlane said she hopes to build public confidence in the agency
by improving communication, increasing transparency and making NRC
documents understandable. “Some of them are rather opaque,” she
allowed.

She has said some slightly more impressive things back before
she was appointed.

Continue reading →

Who are the owners of the Remerton Mill?

Somebody asked:

Who are the owners of the Remerton Mill?


Remerton Mill Map by Lowndes County Tax Assessor database
It’s not a secret; some of them are usually at the Remerton City Council
meetings that discuss the mill.

According to

the Lowndes County Tax Assessor’s database,
the owner of the property at 1853 W Gordon Street (aka Old Mill Site)
is Remerton Mills, LLC.
According to

Georgia Secretary of State’s corporation database,
the registered agent is Joseph H. Tillman, Sr.,
its articles were filed by Barry Chapman, and the LLC’s management
consists of
Richard J. Nijem,
Joseph H. Tillman, Sr.,
Jesse L. Maranville,
J. Glenn Gregory,
and Eric M. Tillman.

According to the Tax Assessor’s Database,
the adjoining property at 1415 Baytree Road is owned by
Richard J. Nijem, Jesse L. Maranville, Eric M. Tillman, Joseph H. Tillman,
and J. Glenn Gregory:
the same people as Remerton Mill, LLC.

-jsq

Wind second only to natural gas in 2011 added capacity

Looks like Southern Company (SO) bet on the wrong horse.

David Danielson wrote for DoE 14 August 2012,

A Banner Year for the U.S. Wind Industry,

The report finds total U.S. wind power capacity grew to 47,000
megawatts by the end of 2011 and has since grown to 50,000
megawatts, enough to power 12 million homes annually — as many
homes as in the entire state of California. And as wind energy
capacity has grown, more and more wind turbines and components like
towers, blades, gears, and generators are “Made in
America.” Nearly 70 percent of all of the equipment installed
at U.S. wind farms last year came from domestic manufacturers,
doubling from 35 percent in 2005.


Why should SO worry? Wind only came in second in added capacity.
Because of this:

In addition to strong gains in domestic wind manufacturing and
capacity, the report finds that as wind technology improves, costs
are coming down. Technological innovations are helping make longer
and lighter wind turbine blades, while improving turbine performance
and increasing the efficiency of power generation. At the same time,
wind project capital and maintenance costs have continued to
decline.

And wind doesn't even have Moore's Law going for it as much as solar does,
plus solar is usable in more areas than wind.
Add wind and solar and why do we need much natural gas?
(Or any coal or nuclear?)

-jsq

Save the Remerton Mill! —Ransom Gladwin

LTE in the VDT yesterday. -jsq

Part of my teaching load as a professor consists of supervising


student teachers at schools throughout Valdosta State University’s
46-county service area. I have traveled many South Georgia back
roads. What was once a charming rural landscape of unique little
towns has slowly morphed into sameness. Chain-brand retail stores,
fast food, and gas stations are interrupted by strip malls and
storage units. The region’s character has receded in the face of
nationalization and globalization. However, historical features, be
they a restored courthouse or a crumbling tobacco barn, light this
bleakness. They give character, history, and pride to communities.
One such structure is Remerton’s Strickland Mill, now in danger of
complete destruction.

As a member of the Save the Strickland Mill Committee of the
Valdosta Heritage Foundation, we recently toured the mill, with the
approval of the owners and accompanied by Remerton officials. The
original mill is structurally solid. The 1899 structure reflects

Continue reading →

Where would Georgia Solar Utilities Inc. get enough land for 80 MW solar generation?


Plant Branch in Georgia
Where will
Georgia Solar Utilities Inc.
get

the 2,200 acres it says it needs to build 80 MW of solar generation?
Well, it’s supposed to be “adjacent to Georgia Power Co’s coal-burning Plant Branch near Milledgeville, Ga.”, so let’s look there.


Plant Branch Location Map
A

brochure on Plant Branch by Georgia Power
(undated, but last date mentioned is 1998, so I’m guessing 1999)
says:

Located on 1,900 acres on Lake Sinclair in Putnam County between
Eatonton and Milledgeville, Plant Branch was the first
million-plus-kilowatt electric generating station to operate on the
Georgia Power system. It is named for Harllee Branch Jr., former
chairman of the board of Southern Company and president of Georgia
Power. Construction on the plant began in 1961, and by the summer of
1969,

Coal pouring onto pile
four units were in operation. The 1,539,000 kilowatts
generated by Plant Branch provides enough electrical power for
342,000 households.

And now Plant Branch will be among the first to close coal-generating
units.
According to
Melissa Stiers for GPB News 12 July 2011,

Georgia Power Closing Three Plants,

Two coal fired units at Plant Branch in Milledgeville will close in
2013. That’s a result of federal regulation tightening air pollution
controls. The company has said it’s too costly to upgrade those
units.


Plant Branch across Lake Sinclair
As we know, Georgia Power’s parent The Southern Company

claimed it was incompetent to deal with the new EPA regulations
even though it had already announced the Plant Branch closures (amounting to about 770 MW),
and later SO announced

4,000 MW of coal plant closures.

While the various news stories keep saying Plant Branch is in Milledgeville,
actually, it’s on the other side of Lake Sinclair, closer to Eatonville,

Plant Branch site in Putnam County qpublic map
and in Putnam County.
A quick glance at the

Putnam County Tax Assessor database maps
shows that the land parcel containing Plant Branch
is 913.87 acres, much of which isn’t actually used by the plant.
And Georgia Power owns a total of more than 3,000 acres adjacent
to that site.
So I’m guessing the 2,200 acres figure is simply around 3,100 total
Georgia Power acres minus 913 acres for the present Plant Branch site.

Estimates for land needed for a megawatt of solar power generation range

Continue reading →

Pass the Production Tax Credit for Georgia Jobs



At

yesterday’s wind rally on Tybee Island,
one spoke about

passing the Production Tax Credit
for

wind jobs in Georgia.

More pictures and videos in the
GA Sierra Club flickr set.

-jsq

PS: Owed to Seth Gunning.

Company to build 90 MW solar and become a utility

What to do if you can’t interest Georgia Power in building solar?
Do it yourself, and do enough so you can be a utility yourself.
That’s the loophole in the 1973

Electric Territorial Act
that FPL and JEA use to burn coal at Plant Scherer in Georgia and export the power to Florida.
Now Georgia Solar Utilities Inc. is using the loophole for a better purpose:
building almost twice as much solar generation
as Georgia Power’s meager 50 MW.


Georgia Solar Utilities
Dave Williams wrote for the Atlanta Business Chronicle yesterday

New Georgia utility pitches solar plant:
A new utility is planning to build a $320 million solar power plant on 2,200 acres adjacent to Georgia Power Co’s coal-burning Plant Branch near Milledgeville, Ga.

Georgia Solar Utilities Inc. initially approached Georgia Power, a
unit of Southern Co. (NYSE: SO), with a proposal to build the plant
and sell it to Georgia Power through a power-purchasing agreement.

Georgia Power is retiring two coal-fired units at Plant Branch, part
of a move to reduce the Atlanta-based utility’s reliance on coal.

But when Georgia Power officials declined to take part in the
project last May, Georgia Solar Utilities executives decided to
build the plant on their own and operate it as a new utility
independent of Georgia Power.

Once cost prohibitive, solar energy has become competitive with
fossil fuels because of the rising costs of coal and tighter
government regulation of coal emissions, said Robert Green, founder
of Georgia Solar Utilities.

“When you don’t have to buy coal or worry about environmental
hangovers, it overwhelms the costs of fossil fuels, Green said
Thursday after presenting the proposal to the Georgia Public Service
Commission’s Energy Committee.

Some say the PSC can’t approve such a utility because of that 1973 law.
I suspect that if they don’t approve this proposal, the next one
will be even harder to turn down, and the next one,
as they become even more competitive.

How competitive?

Continue reading →

WTOC on wind energy on Tybee Island: rally tonight 2012-08-31


This morning WTOC interviewed Paul Wolff, Tybee City Council, and
Karen Grainey, Coastal Chapter, Georgia Sierra Club,

Wind Works for Jobs for Georgians
about

Wind Works: for Jobs, for Georgians, 6-9 PM tonight 31 August 2012 Tybee Pier.

Paul Wolff said we have a potential for 14.5 gigawatts off the Georgia coast,
without interfering with shipping lanes or the ocean ecology.
He noted big wind turbines need everything down to ball bearings,
much of which can be (and some already is) produced in Georgia.
LAKE blog readers know Paul Wolff
as somebody who has put his money where his mouth is, with

solar on his roof.

Here’s
the video.
Also

PR from SACE
and

a facebook event.


WTOC-TV: Savannah, Beaufort, SC, News, Weather

-jsq

PS: Owed to Seth Gunning.

-jsq

Phase 2 Solar Power for the Wisenbaker Building —Ron Jackson

Phase 2 after
South GA Solar Power, LLC remediated the historic Wisenbaker Building
is solar generation, according to Ron Jackson.

We wanted to … remediate some of the problems first to reduce the load,
to reduce the energy consumption.


Phase 2 Solar Power for the Wisenbaker Building --Ron Jackson
Once we’ve done that, phase 2 kicks in, which is the solar power application.
If we’d done that first, we probably would have put on a 20KW system
to handle this load.
But because we’ve done the phase 1 project and reduced the energy load,
now we only need an 8-10 KW system,
so the prices have been reduced.
Next year hopefully it will be a fully green, fully functioned
solar power application.

Right in downtown Valdosta!



The

historic Wisenbaker Building,
100 North Patterson Street, is at the corner of West Hill Avenue.
It was

purchased by Gino Fina in 2006,
and is now used as

Valdosta Shared Office Space.

Here’s

the video.


Phase 2 Solar Power for the Wisenbaker Building –Ron Jackson

Pictures and video by John S. Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE), Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 5 May 2012.

-jsq