Tag Archives: History

NJ 1 GW Solar: GA #22

While Georgia

failed to reform its antique Territorial Electric Service Act
and

toyed with a solar monopoly,


New Jersey, far to the north with far less sun,
finished installing a gigawatt (1,000 megawatts) of solar power.
The rest of the

U.S. installed 3.3 MW total, slightly higher
than projections of 3.2 MW, but Georgia lagged behind.
When will the legislature and the Public Service Commission,
and perhaps more importantly, Georgia Power and Southern Company,
stop

stop wasting our money on that three-legged nuclear regulatory-capture boondoggle
at Plant Vogtle
and get on with solar in Georgia for jobs, for profit, and for clean air and water?

Pete Danko wrote for

Earth Techling and Huffpo 20 March 2013,

New Jersey Solar Capacity Hits 1 Gigawatt,

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U.S. installed 3.3 Gigawatts of solar in 2012, on target

Moore’s law continues to drive solar costs down and installations up.
According to SEIA,

U.S. Market Installs 3,300 Megawatts in 2012; Driven by Record Fourth Quarter,

2012 was a historic year for the U.S. solar industry. There were
3,313 megawatts (MW) of photovoltaic (PV) capacity installed
throughout the year, which represents 76% growth over 2011’s record
deployment totals. The fourth quarter of 2012 was also the largest
quarter on record as 1,300 MW came online, driven in part by
unprecedented installation levels in the residential and utility
markets. SEIA and GTM Research forecast that the market will
continue to grow at a steady clip with over 4,200 MW of PV and 940
MW of concentrating solar power (CSP) expected to come online in
2013. (All data from SEIA/GTM Research “U.S. Solar Market
Insight 2012 Year-In-Review” unless otherwise noted.)


And those new installations are driven by solar PV prices continually falling in

Moore’s Law for solar:

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Renewable Portfolio Standards: GA, NC, and ALEC

Renewable Energy Portfolio Standards (RPS) are being proposed
in Georgia and ALEC is trying to do away with them in North Carolina.
If ALEC doesn’t like them, there must be something good about RPS.
Let’s get on with real renewable energy in Georgia.



In Georgia,

HB 503,
sponsored by Karla Drenner, Carol Fullerton, Debbie Buckner, Scott
Holcomb, Spencer Frye, and Earnest Smith,
would create a Renewable Energy Credits Trading program as part of
renewable portfolio standards,
as Kyle wrote for Spencer Frye’s blog 10 March 2013,

Let the Sunshine In.
Unfortunately, HB 503 includes biomass as a renewable energy source.
Maybe they just mean landfill gas, which I consider a special case
since it’s being produced anyway, and since methane is worse as
a greenhouse gas than CO2, burning landfill gas makes some sense.
Nope, in

the actual bill, 46-3-71 (1):

‘Biomass material’ means organic matter, excluding fossil fuels and black liquor,
including agricultural crops, plants, trees, wood, wood wastes and residues, sawmill
waste, sawdust, wood chips, bark chips, and forest thinning, harvesting, or clearing
residues; wood waste from pallets or other wood demolition debris; peanut shells; cotton
plants; corn stalks; and plant matter, including aquatic plants, grasses, stalks, vegetation,
and residues, including hulls, shells, or cellulose containing fibers

The barn door in there is “harvesting”, which can mean whole trees,
but the rest isn’t much better.
We don’t need to be burning things that increase atmospheric CO2
and end up stripping our forests.
In

North Carolina they staretd with just tops and limbs and then tried to escalate
to whole trees.
We already
fought off the biomass boondoggle here in south Georgia;
let’s not have it encouraged statewide.
Especially when we have better solutions: solar and wind power.
HB 503 isn’t going to get passed this year, since it didn’t make
crossover day, so maybe its sponsors can clean up that biomass mess
before they submit it again.

Speaking of North Carolina,

Continue reading →

South Ga. officials expecting sinkholes after rain while NYTimes plays down the risk



Sinkholes aren’t just
for Florida anymore: Albany’s got them.
Are sinkholes risky?
You may think so if one is under your house.
And here above the Floridan Aquifer you probably won’t know that
until your foundations starts cracking.
Maybe we should do something to prevent the problem,
and to help people who are affected by it.
Perhaps the Lowndes County government till pay attention when
somebody’s house falls into a sinkhole.

Jim Wallace wrote for WALB 9 March 2013,

Expect more sinkholes,

Some sinkholes have opened up in South Georgia since the recent
heavy rains.

And engineers and public works experts say they expect more
sinkholes to develop in the coming weeks. It’s just nature at work,
but it can really cause some problems.

Really?
Does “nature at work” include

sinkholes predictably forming after
massive water pumping to sprinkle strawberries during a cold snap?

The WALB story pooh-poohs the possibility of anything like that Sefner
sinkhole showing up in south Georgia, and then details two Albany sinkholes:

Continue reading →

Suwannee County sinkholes —WCTV



Sinkholes in

Seffner, Fort Myers,
Tallahassee,
and now even closer.
Follow the Withlacoochee River south to the Suwannee River,
and two counties south of us in Suwannee County, Florida,
they’ve got dozens of sinkholes,

one of them massive, with another one this month,
including apparently a cavern under some yards.
This is in the same Floridan Aquifer that underlies Lowndes County,
where we had

a road drop into a sinkhole three years ago
and sinkholes were discovered under a man’s garage and yard last year.

Greg Gullberg 4 March 2013,

The Science Behind Sinkholes,

Mikell Cook says he and his neighbors have learned more about
Geology than they ever cared to since last summer when Tropical
Storm Debby swept through much of Florida leaving Live Oak and
surrounding areas peppered with sinkholes.

He and his neighbors live in the town of McAlpin, where

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Tallahassee sinkhole

Even closer than
Tampa Bay
or
Fort Myers,
Tallahassee has sinkhole problems in our same Floridan Aquifer
just across the state line.
Will the Lowndes County Commission do anything about our sinkhole
problems before people start losing their insurance and get sucked
into holes in the ground?

Andy Alcock wrote for WCTV Wednesday,

Tallahassee Woman Faces Sinkhole Problem,


Imagine living in a home you can’t insure, no one wants to buy and
it may not be safe.

A Tallahassee woman is currently facing that problem.

At first glance, her home in Tallahassee’s Mission Manor
neighborhood on the city’s northwest side doesn’t look much
different from any of the other homes in the neighborhood.

Then about two years ago, homeowner Vickie Gordon found a problem.

“I started noticing that the doors were getting stuck in the
bathroom, couldn’t open them,” said Gordon.

Then the issues became more noticeable.

Cracks started showing up all over the house.

After Gordon contacted her insurance company, investigators found
sinkhole activity at her home.

I wish this part was a joke:

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Florida sink hole evicts church

More

sinkholes in Florida in the same Floridan Aquifer that’s under us,
this time evacuating a church.
Maybe sinkhole safety should be important here, too.

WCTV carried an AP story today,

Suspected Sinkhole Forces Church Move



Pastor Rick Shuck told WBBH in Fort Myers on Monday the sinkhole has
caused uneven floors, cracks in the walls and a hole in the ground
so large that a landscaper fell into it.

Shuck says they had to end Faith Community Church’s Sunday service
early because “it’s just not safe anymore.” He says some cracks in
the walls are a half-inch wide and part of the auditorium floor has
dropped about 4 1/2 inches.



Geological engineers say it’s definitely a sinkhole. But the
church’s insurance company sent engineers who determined there is no
problem. So next month the two sides are heading to mediation.

That second picture above was taken in Lowndes County,
showing

printouts of analysis by a VSU professor of sinkholes
under a yard in Lowndes County.


And they’re

under Michael McCormick’s shed (see picture on the right),
and they’re

in his garage.

The same Floridan Aquifer is underground here as in Florida.
Perhaps something needs to be done about sinkholes right here in Lowndes County?

-jsq

Videos: Solar Dublin High School groundbreaking @ DHS Solar 2013-03-11


Breaking ground
Groundbreaking for solar power to save Dublin High 40%,
thus reducing teacher furloughs,

financed by municipal bonds,
made possible by cooperation among a wide range of
government officials, private companies, and individuals:
that was the groundbreaking story in Dublin, Laurens County, yesterday,
videod by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE.



Dublin City Schools are willing to try something new, and that’s why
they were groundbreaking,

said Chuck Ledbetter, Superintendent, yesterday.
He

recognized members present of the Dublin City Council, the
Laurens County Commission, the Dublin-Laurens Development Authority,
and state representative Matt Hatchett, and
Public Service Commissioner Bubba McDonald.

Ledbetter’s theme,


News camera and speaker
Everybody worked together to make this happen.

was echoed over and over by many other speakers.
What they worked for was economic help for Dublin City Schools
through solar power, financed by municipal bonds.


The Mayor of Dublin, Phil Best added to the list

Continue reading →

Circular wastewater firing squad continues

The VDT's Sunday front page was covered with wastewater stories,
continuing the circular firing squad of the local powers that be.
Meanwhile

in Dublin, GA, they're breaking ground for solar panels
at the local high school, using a bond financing
model that we could use here, if local leaders would look up.



In addition to

some detail about the city's FEMA application
and

following up on flooded yards,
the VDT followed up on

its EPD and EPA scrutiny story
with one saying

City received help from EPD to keep EPA away.
It's good the VDT is covering these issues, but it's still leaving out
important parts of the local water story.

Apparently firing back at



Thursday's Valdosta City Council session,
perhaps especially

Robert Yost's very pointed criticisms of the VDT,
the VDT concluded its

rather rich Sunday editoral:

City leaders, please, no more of the blame game. The citizens of
this community are imploring you to just accept responsibility and
fix it.

Yet the VDT has

spent the last week blaming the city,
and has accepted no responsibility for its own role, or that of
its editor, Kay Harris, in the recent loss of the SPLOST referendum
that would have further funded wastewater work in Valdosta.

Now, I agree with the VDT that

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Solar Dublin High School groundbreaking tomorrow



Dublin gets the jump on the rest of Georgia again:
Dublin High School will get a megawatt of solar electricity
through a lease agreement with a private company
using local government bonds to get around Georgia’s special financing problem.

Kenny Burgamy reported for for 13wmaz.com Thursday,

Solar Plant To Be Located at Dublin High,

Dublin High School of Dublin City Schools will soon implement
1 megawatt of solar energy.



The 4,000 panel solar power plant will be the largest in Central
Georgia and is expected to save the school 40 percent in energy
costs.

Dublin City Schools Superintendent Chuck Ledbetter told 13WMAZ, “The
facility will be built and owned by private business and the school
system will lease the solar power plant, saving us money in energy
costs.”

The original plan was developed more than 15-months ago by German
based MAGE SOLAR, which has a plant located in Laurens County.

The story has been carried by
GPB
by
Athens Banner-Herald via AP.

This installation is similar to but slightly different from

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