CJB Industries is on the agenda twice, and in
an article on VLCIA’s website
and
in an article in Georgia Trend that is the subject of one
of those agenda items.
Here’s the agenda:
Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial AuthorityContinue reading
Tuesday, February 18, 2014 5:30 p.m.
Industrial Authority Conference Room
2110 N. Patterson Street
Agenda
It’s not like they weren’t warned,
about coal
and
about nukes.
It’s not Standard & Poor’s this time,
but that could happen soon, too.
SO’s biggest part, Georgia Power, is neck-deep in nukes,
as
Edison Electric Institute’s warning
about
the disruptive challenge of distributed solar
starts to affect its parent’s stock price.
Zacks.com wrote 21 June 2013, Southern Company Slips to Sell – Analyst Blog
On Jun 20, Zacks Investment Research downgraded electric utility firm, Southern Company ( SO ), to a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell).
Why the Downgrade?
Continue reading
GSEA, GaSU, Georgia Power, and even me are quoted in a Georgia Trend feature about solar power in Georgia. As Mahatma Gandhi is alleged to have said when asked his opinion of western civilization: “that would be a good idea!”
Jerry Grillo wrote for Georgia Trend July 2013, Sun Dancing: As Georgia’s solar capacity shoots skyward, a new state utility is proposed,
It’s the sun, the sol of our solar system, to which everything that lives and moves, including the wind, owes its existence. Without the sun, there is no us, no Earth. You can’t miss it. It’s the biggest thing in the sky, the biggest thing for at least 24 trillion miles, and at 4.5 billion years old it is middle-aged and remains the most abundant source of power between here and Alpha Centauri, zapping our planet every minute with more energy than humanity can consume in a year.
The best thing is, the sun is free. Still, for most of those eons, capturing the sun’s energy for human consumption has been like picking crops with a catcher’s mitt.
But over the past few years, photovoltaic technology (“photo” for light, “voltaic” meaning electricity) has gotten way more efficient, and the previously prohibitive price has fallen dramatically, setting the stage for what’s happening now in Georgia: Solar deployment and interest are increasing dramatically.
“This is a very dynamic time for solar energy, and it demonstrates a pent-up demand and interest in solar energy for Georgia,” says Mark Bell, chair of the Georgia Solar Energy Association (GSEA) and president of Atlanta-based Empower Energy Tech-nology. “There’s a great potential here for real, sustainable economic development.”
Grillo was pretty thorough in getting a range of points of view
(with the notable exception of
Georgia Sierra Club),
and
the whole article
is well worth reading.
Among the things I told Grillo back at the beginning of May, I’m especially glad he included this:
Continue readingWhen did state tax policy become a plaything for companies, instead of a source of services for taxpayers? 
There’s a lot of fudging in the T-SPLOST article in the current Georgia Trend. I guess that’s not surprising when it’s mostly about the viewpoint of the CEO of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce.
Ben Young wrote for Georgia Trend June 2012, Transportation Game Changer: July’s statewide referendum will determine Georgia’s economic future. There’s a lot at stake for all 12 regions.
“The reason our port is the fastest growing is because our road and rail network is so efficient,” says Chris Cummiskey, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Economic De-velopment, another top RTR advocate. “If Zell Miller and other former administrations hadn’t done something to make the port more of a growth engine, we would now have little to no success in advanced manufacturing.”
Yet the rest of the article is all about roads, with little or nothing about rail, except for metro Atlanta and Charlotte as a comparison. Where are the rail projects linking Valdosta to Atlanta and Savannah, or the Valdosta MSA commuter rail or bus system? Nowhere in T-SPLOST.
It is also unclear how Georgia can sustain growth in logistics-related sectors that depend on moving goods quickly and efficiently — sectors believed to be leading us out of the recession — without strengthening the highway network, which has suffered due to lower gas tax revenues. Without an additional tax, there is no way to keep up what we have, much less build anything new, proponents say.
Um, then maybe the governor shouldn’t have 
refused to extend Georgia’s gas tax by 8/10 cent (almost as much as proposed the 1 cent T-SPLOST tax, but on gasoline, not on everything including food). And note “believed to be” and “proponents say”. Later in the same article:
People are desperate for more transportation funding and the improvements it will bring, but the referendum itself is complex.
Who are these unnamed “people”? The same “proponents” by whom things are “believed to be”? Isn’t it wonderful to base tax policy on hearsay?
If Georgia was serious about creating jobs to lead us out of the recession and into a national and world leader, Georgia legislators Continue reading
Jerry Grillo wrote for the July 2011 Georgia Trend, Partly Sunny In Georgia: The state’s solar industry is growing steadily, but slowly, as the national industry explodes
“Georgia is shackled to the 20th century,” Peterson says.All it would take to fix this is the political will.“If all I did was look at Georgia, I’d think we were doing well. But I work all over the country, and I’m not kidding when I say we’re dealing with $500-million solar projects that have no chance of coming here because of systemic problems that keep Georgia from participating in the 21st-century economy, which has renewable energy as a major component.
“It’s disgusting, considering our potential, how much opportunity is lost, how much capital investment is passed up.”
Maybe if the people and elected and appointed officials look at the handwriting on the wall: Continue reading