Tag Archives: Economy

Solar price drops setting invisible price limit for ever-dirtier fossil fuel extraction

A fairly insightful piece on the how oil price rises drive more fossil fuel production,


currently fueled by debt because wages of most workers have been falling, still misses two big points: solar prices continually plumetting now undercut all fossil fuel prices, and dirtier fossil fuel extraction and its massive colonial invasion of pipelines are meeting resistance everywhere, including at the regulatory-captured puppet agencies like FERC.

“Tyler Durden”, ZeroHedge, 13 May 2016,
Submitted by Gail Tverberg via Our Finite World blog,

The Real Oil Limits Story – What Other Researchers Missed, Continue reading →

18-wheeler on Hambrick Road, and No Trucks Over 10 Wheels sign



This is what Gretchen meant when she
told the Lowndes County Commission
trucks too big use Hambrick Road as a short cut,
when GA 122 is 0.4 miles farther up Cat Creek Road.

You can see who owns this particular truck, but it’s far from the only one.
And in case you had any doubt where this is, Continue reading →

Mutual aid, Variance, Remerton Mills Quitclaim @ RCC 2016-04-04

Only the smoke stack remains, yet Remerton Mills still took up most of the


Remerton City Council agenda when Gretchen videoed there this month.
The Humane Society wants to house dogs temporarily and house an adoption site for cats. This also requires a variance.
Yes, apparently Remerton has more room for animals than Valdosta.

Here are links to the LAKE videos of each item, from the
agenda.
Also notice Remerton has Citizens to Be Heard first, like
both Lowndes County and Valdosta used to have only a few years ago. Continue reading →

Halliburton says fossil fuels unsustainable, lays off a third worldwide, including management

You know things are bad for fossil fuels when the biggest profiteer of them all takes an axe to itself.
The fewer fossil fuel boondoggles
(including

more pipeline projects going belly-up),
the faster investment will keep moving to

renewable sun, wind, and water power,
for profits, and we get clean air and water and less global warming.

“Tyler Durden”, Zerohedge, 22 April 2016,

Halliburton Fires One Third Of Global Staff: “What We Are Experiencing Today Is Unsustainable”,

In a brutally frank and painfully honest first quarter operational update, Halliburton president Jeff Miller poured freezing cold water all over the “oil is stabilizing, and everything is going to be awesome” narrative. After explaining that the firm has laid off one-third of its global employees, and pointing to the collapse in sequential revenues across every business unit, Miller exclaimed: “What we are experiencing today is far beyond headwinds; it is
unsustainable.”

Due to the deadline of its merger agreement with Baker Hughes Halliburtion has delayed its earnings conference call until May 3rd and so gave an operational update. The healdlines were horrific:

Project Max and many others 6PM this evening @ VLCIA 2016-04-19

Is the mysterious Project Max a glass container plant as everyone seems to think?

An agenda suddenly appeared
It’s on

the agenda that suddenly appeared on the Development Authority’s website
this afternoon after Gretchen called to ask where it was.
She will be there with the LAKE video camera.

Valdosta-Lowndes Development Authority

Tuesday, April 19, 2016 5:30 p.m.

Development Authority Conference Room/103 Roosevelt Drive

Monthly Meeting Agenda Continue reading →

Wind and Solar are winning by 2 to 1 over gas and coal

Guess what’s really inevitable, pipeline companies?
Solar and wind power.


Utility scare tactics that no coal means pipelines are so much hot air.
Scare tactics that no pipelines would mean LNG trains are burnt up by solar power.
Stop pipelnes or fracking and stop the other and LNG export along with it.
And we’re winning!

Tom Randall, Bloomberg, 6 April 2016,

Wind and Solar Are Crushing Fossil Fuels: Record clean energy investment outpaces gas and coal 2 to 1. Continue reading →

Videos: Project Max and more at Development Authority @ VLCIA 2016-02-16



They said almost nothing last month about
Project Max, so we don’t know for sure if for example it is really a glass container company.
They meet again tonight. Actually, that one is cancelled; they meet next April 19th.

At the end, Gretchen

spoke about:


  1. Ham and Eggs Show     2016-02-17
  2. the WWALS Withlacoochee and Little River Workshop at VSU 2016-02-27
  3. the South Georgia Growing Local food conference went well, and led to
    a planning session led by Charlie Barnes about local food planning 2016-03-31.

Dr. Noll of WACE said he was there to “harrass” Continue reading →

Help fix land revaluation: come to Farm Bureau –Board of Equalization

Come to the Farm Bureau in two weeks to hear
Tax Assessor staff present their updates and provide your input

Contents
for changes to the
rural land revaluation, this time taking into account rivers, aquifer recharge zones, and uniformity.
Maybe the Tax Assessors actually don’t want more flooding in Valdosta;
both the City of Valdosta and GA-EDP have already shown interest in attending
about that point.

At an appeal on my property valuation,
the Board of Equalization stopped short of actually ordering the Tax Assessors to redo last year’s rural land revaluation, because staff volunteered Continue reading →

Southern Co. gets serious about smart grid: buys PowerSecure

While FPL wastes $3 billion on the 20th century Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline,

Southern Company (SO) shows it’s serious about distributed energy by buying
distributed grid infrastructure company PowerSecure (POWR) for $431 million.
That announcement not only bumped POWR stock up by about 75%,
the same day (yesterday) smart grid company EnerNOC (ENOC) shares went up 20%.
That last could be coincidental, since ENOC announced earnings.
But with two smart grid companies going up, the renewable solar and wind energy future
is coming closer.

PRNewswire,
24 February 2016,

Southern Company to Acquire PowerSecure International, Inc.:
Addition of PowerSecure’s proven expertise positions Southern Company to advance distributed infrastructure development, Continue reading →

Why people don’t speak up: they owe their soul to the company store



Some of our elected officials wonder few people ever speak up around here.
It’s simple: they owe their soul to the company store.
If you don’t go along, you don’t get business.

As

Tennessee Ernie Ford sang in that old Merle Travis song:

You load sixteen tons, what do you get

Another day older and deeper in debt

Saint Peter don’t you call me ’cause I can’t go

I owe my soul to the company store

Continue reading →