Solar Roadways has raised $1,884,633 in six weeks from Earth Day to now
on a goal of $1,000,000 in indiegogo
(which was already
a record for most contributors with 36,000 people at $1.5 million).
Yes, to all those who have asked me, I think it could work.
Add solar roadways to rooftop solar and solar farms and wind,
and
the EPA’s new CO2 rule (which doesn’t even do much about coal for years
and does nothing about about “natural” gas)
will seem like a quaint baby step in a few years after this happens: Continue reading
Tag Archives: LAKE
Energy Policy Act of 2005 considered harmful
The same Energy Policy Act of 2005 that
subsidized dirty oil and fracked methane including LNG exports
also funded
that oxymoron “clean” coal such as Southern Company’s Plant Ratcliffe
in Mississippi,
ethanol production lining the pockets of Monsanto, and
the $8.3 billion loan guarantee
to Georgia Power for the new nukes at Plant Vogtle.
2005 was a very long time ago in solar PV years:
prices are halved, and installed solar power production is up more
than ten times and growing exponentially like compound interest.
We need to stop throwing money at dirty, water-sucking,
centralized baseload 20th century non-solutions and get on with
clean 21st century distributed solar and wind power
for jobs, for energy independence, and for clean air and water,
not to mention less climate change.
-jsq
Frontage, trees, daycare, and Wal-Mart @ ZBOA 2014-06-03
Two
Lowndes County
cases (
road frontage and
tree protection),
and two
Valdosta
Valdosta cases
(daycares on busy streets
and
Wal-Mart parking).
The county cases are both variances from the
Unified Land Development Code (ULDC)
and the city cases are both variances from Valdosta’s
Land Development Regulations (LDR),
and both the ULDC and LDR are supposed to be consistent with the
Comprehensive Plan.
Here’s the agenda. The City of Valdosta puts ZBOA agendas and minutes online in real PDFs.
Continue readingValdosta -Lowndes County Zoning Board of Appeals
Matt Martin, Valdosta Planning and Zoning Administrator Carmella Braswell, Lowndes County Zoning Administrator 300 North Lee Street, Valdosta, Georgia 327 North Ashley Street, Valdosta, Georgia (229) 259-3563 (229) 671-2430
AGENDA
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
2:30 p.m.
Videos: Regional water council meeting in Valdosta @ SSRWPC 2014-05-21
Anticipating water and wastewater needs,
coordinating with Florida and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,
comparing water usage to available resources in the face of droughts,
floods, and climate change,
Georgia’s regional water management council for this area
considered all this and more when it met
in Valdosta to finalize a document:
Regional Assessment of Implementation Status.
Here are videos of the whole meeting.
-
Introductions
Video. Attendees included:
- Cliff Lewis, Assistant Branch Chief: GA EPD Watershed Protection Branch, Continue reading
Slight changes at Southern Company @ SO 2014-05-28
Solar car charging station at the
Southern Company Stockholder Meeting:
that’s new.
Other solar changes were detectable, if you knew what to look for,
and with hints from
SO CEO Tom Fanning and
new R&D VP Larry Monroe
here are some, while we’re waiting on SO for video and transcript.
Two demonstration solar charging cars were on the lawn outside the breakfast tent: Continue reading
30 MW solar times 3 Army bases in Georgia with Georgia Power
An additional 90 megawatts of solar power by Georgia Power, beyond what the GA PSC required last summer? With whose Army?
Kristi E. Swartz wrote for EnergyWire 16 May 2014, Georgia Power plan would install solar arrays on 3 Army bases,
Georgia Power and the Army jointly released plans to install large solar arrays at three military bases yesterday in what officials say could be a model for other states.
The three solar arrays are scheduled to start producing power in 2015 and will lead to the Army getting 18 percent of its electricity in Georgia from renewable fuels that are on-site.
The 90 total megawatts of solar electricity also will move the Army 9 percent closer to meeting federal goals for renewable energy.
Adding three 30 MW arrays would continue to boost Georgia’s rapidly growing solar output and would help the military meet its renewable energy goals to become sustainable and more secure.
The move also alleviates mounting political and public pressure on Georgia Power to remove roadblocks that some say have made it difficult for the military to meet its federal renewable energy goals.
OK, that’s all good stuff. However, I’m missing the part about SO is going beyond what GA PSC required Georgia Power to do:
“From the commission standpoint, it’s a joint venture between the Georgia Public Service Commission and the Georgia Power Co. It is a partnership,” PSC member Lauren “Bubba” McDonald said in an interview with EnergyWire. “Georgia will be the model state.”
At least a couple of state utility regulators have been working with Georgia Power for months on a program specifically to install solar at military bases. The utility will use a 90 MW self-build project that the Georgia Public Service Commission approved in 2007 to implement its plans.
So if that 90 MW was approved by GA PSC in 2007, how is it
beyond
the 525 MW GA PSC required of Georgia Power last summer?
Maybe Georgia Power and GA PSC won’t count that 90MW within the 525 MW.
This could confirm that interpretation:
McDonald said this program is an extension of his efforts last summer when he shepherded a proposal to have Georgia Power add 525 MW of solar to the grid as part of the utility’s long-term energy plan.
OK, that’s good. It’s still not enough: Georgia Power should be doubling its solar generation every year, not just adding 17% above what it’s required. But it’s some sort of acknowledgement that something needs to be done, and it is something Georgia Power is actually doing.
-jsq
First of two public meetings on the budget @ LCC Budget 2014-05-27
Chairman Bill Slaughter started this morning’s budget session as
“the first of our two public meetings on the budget before that
budget will be adopted; basically a work session to go over the budget.”
Does that mean it is a Public Hearing?
If so, why do the county’s front page and calendar link to
a blank page for a “Budget Session”,
and there’s no Public Notice, even though there were
Public Notices for
the two road abandonments on the agenda for the Work Session and Regular Session?
How can it be a Public Hearing if it’s not announced as such
and the public doesn’t know about it?
Gretchen says that near the end they clarified that this was not a
Public Hearing, and there would be two actual Public Hearings
before the budget was adopted, although when is still a mystery.
Here’s a video playlist, followed by links to the individual videos. There are no links to an agenda, because the county didn’t publish an agenda, nor a draft budget.
Continue readingVideos: Road work and apparently annexation @ LCC Work 2014-05-27
Nevermind the County Engineer said about the Cat Creek Road bridge,
“All construction will take place during the months of June and July”
(Work Session 2014-03-24),
it was closed when Gretchen was headed for this morning’s Work Session,
so she had to go by Moody AFB on Bemiss Road, and was a few minutes late.
That’s why there’s no video for the first few agenda items,
and the videos are handheld.
They vote 5:30 PM this evening at the Regular Session,
is the same time as the Planning Commission meeting.
The smaller acreage for the
return of the Hahira Annexation request
is because it no longer has frontage on Hagen Bridge Road,
only on GA 122, thus removing
the county’s previous grounds for objection
(but it’s also on
the Planning Commission agenda at 5:30PM today, same time as the Regular Session).
There is an appointment to the
Hospital Authority
and two reappointments to the
shadowy Lowndes County Public Facilities Authority
that approves bonds.
Two Public Hearings for road abandonments, of
Old Statenville Road
and
of
Excess Right of Way on James Road and Riverside Road.
All that plus a
GEMA Sheltering Memorandum of Agreement
and a
beer license,
plus
Poll Manager Recognition.
Here’s the agenda, with links to the videos and a few notes. See videos from the previous Regular Session for context on the Public Hearings and on the James Road Subsidence.
LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERSContinue reading
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, TUESDAY, MAY 27, 2014, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, MAY 27, 2014, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street — 2nd Floor
Southern Company Stockholder Meeting @ SO 2014-05-28
If you owned Southern Company stock on 31 March 2014 (I did), you should have gotten a letter to Stockholders from SO CEO Tom Fanning:
You are invited to attend the 2014 Annual Meeting of Stockholders at 10 a.m. ET on Wednesday, May 28, 2014, at The Lodge Conference Center at Callaway Gardens, Pine Mountain, Georgia.
Tom Fanning is a most congenial host, always ready with an answer to any question, as you can see in these videos from the Continue reading
NRC nuke waste plan failed federal appeal
Why the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is
trying to get the public’s confidence in nuclear waste management:
NRC lost an appeal in 2012.
Southern Company’s new nukes at Plant Vogtle scraped by before
this happened, but there’s still no place for nuke waste
even from the existing Vogtle 1 and 2 reactors to go.
NRC has a revised Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) scheduled to be finished October 2014.
Here’s U.S. DC Circuit Court of Appeals decision No. 11-1045 NY v. NRC 8 June 2012, on the Court’s website and on NIRS’ website.
David Erickson and Mark Anstoetter wrote for Lexology 17 August 2012, NRC suspends issuance of nuclear power plant licenses,
In response to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision to vacate its rule regarding long-term storage of nuclear waste, New York v. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, No. 11-1045 (D.C. Cir. 6/8/12), the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has agreed to suspend Continue reading