Tag Archives: LAKE

Tonight in Moultrie, tomorrow in Valdosta, Spectra Pipeline meetings

Spectra Energy is coming to Valdosta and Moultrie to tell us how great their proposed pipeline will be, as it cuts a 100-foot wide path from Anniston, Alabama to Orlando, Florida through south Georgia, using eminent domain to make you sell your land, for the benefit of Florida Power and Light. Maybe you’d like to ask Spectra reps Brian Fahrenthold or Andrea Grover a few questions, like can we see a map of the proposed route, with parcel numbers, and what about those fines for violating federal regulations and Spectra’s own corporate operating procedures?

Tonight (Tuesday) 15 October 2013 5:00-7:30 pm.
Moultrie Technical Facility
800 Veterans Parkway
Moultrie, GA
Tomorrow (Wednesday) 16 October 2013 5:00-7:30 pm.
Wiregrass Georgia Tech (Atrium)
4089 Val Tech Road
Valdosta, GA

I have confirmed by calling Wiregrass Tech Economic Development that Spectra Energy will be there from 3:30 to 8:30 PM, which Wiregrass Tech says apparently includes setup and teardown. The Wiregrass Tech contact is Christy Cobb; she wasn’t in when I called. Tech’s web server seems to be down right now, but Google has cached her as:

Cobb, Christy,
Director of Economic Development,
(229) 468-2218,
christy.cobb@wiregrass.edu

-jsq

Special Called Lowndes County Commission Meeting @ LCC 2013-10-15

Could that pending litigation be the county’s lawsuit against Deep South Sanitation about that exclusive franchise that benefits ADS investors in New York City? Will they go straight into executive session?

On the county’s online calendar, with nothing on their front page, and nothing in the online VDT public notices. Here’s the county’s PDF and here’s the text:

Lowndes County Commission logo Lowndes County, Georgia
Board Of Commissioners
SPECIAL CALLED MEETING
A Special Called Meeting of the Lowndes County Board of Commissioners will be held on Tuesday, October 15, 2013, at 3:00 p.m. The meeting will be held in Commission Chambers, located on the second floor of the Lowndes County Judicial‐Administrative Complex, 327 North Ashley Street, Valdosta, Georgia. The Special Called Meeting is being held for attorney client communication regarding pending litigation.

Office of the County Clerk
K. Paige Dukes
229‐671‐2400
pdukes@lowndescounty.com

-jsq

Exits 11, 22, and 29 right of way funding, public open house and comments –VLMPO

Update 2017-08-27: Fix some links that have changed and one broken one. See also GDOT construction on I-75 Exit 29 2017-08-28.

You can comment on road improvements at I-75 and exit 11 onto GA 31 Madison Highway towards Clyattville, exit 22 onto US 41 North Valdosta Road, and Exit 29 onto GA 122 at Hahira, at the Valdosta-Lowndes Metropolitan Planning Organization (VLMPO), the one board around here that goes out of its way to ask for public input, with information in many public offices, with an open house at their office, and with details of their projects on VALOR GIS (select interactive map, then More in the upper right Layers, then MPO Transportation Improvements), including links to project sheets/ GDOT Project Search (GeoPI) is similarly useless for finding the project sheets (which I’ve linked into the public notice below; well one of them is correct).

Public Notice of a Public Comment Period and Public Open House,

In accordance with requirements set forth in the adopted FY2014-2017 Transportation Improvement Program and in 23 CFR 450 and other laws and regulations; the Valdosta-Lowndes Metropolitan Planning Organization (VLMPO) proposes to amend its Transportation Improvement Program for Fiscal Years 2014-2017 (TIP) for the Valdosta Metropolitan Planning Area which includes all of Lowndes County and portions of Berrien, Brooks and Lanier Counties.

The proposed projects in the amendment are as follows: Continue reading →

Fourth extension on Vogtle nuclear loan guarantee deadline

Southern Company doesn’t want to pay $17 to $52 million to get an $8.33 billion federal loan guarantee. That’s 0.2% to 0.62%. Why should we guarantee SO’s bad bet for pennies down? Let’s just call it off!

Ray Henry wrote for AP yesterday, Talks continue over Ga. nuclear plant loans,

Three years after the U.S. government promised $8.3 billion in lending for a nuclear plant in Georgia, Southern Co. and its partners have not sealed a deal.

President Barack Obama’s administration recently agreed to a fourth extension of the deadline for finalizing lending agreements between Southern Co. subsidiary Georgia Power and the other owners of the nuclear plant now under construction. Congress authorized the funding in 2005 to revive a nuclear industry that at the time expected growth.

Few utilities secured even a preliminary agreement, mostly because power companies dropped plans to build nuclear plants. The Great Recession trimmed the demand for energy, and plummeting natural gas prices made it cheaper to build gas-fired plants. The slumping economy also pushed interest rates to historic lows, reducing borrowing costs and undercutting the need for subsidized lending.

All that and ten nukes have been closed or cancelled in the past year. Even France’s EDF has exited nukes in the U.S. and has already built more U.S. solar and wind power than SO’s new Plant Vogtle nukes would produce.

Southern Company now claims this federal loan guarantee isn’t necessary: Continue reading →

France unfracked

No fracking France, affirms France’s highest court. No, silly utilities, fracking is not like geothermal power. Yes, utilities, you’ll have to write off a lot of fossils in the ground. But there’s far more money to be made in clean energy, so get on with it!

Mat McDermott wrote for Motherboard yesterday, You Can’t Frack France

After a constitutional court review, France's ban on hydraulic fracturing for natural gas and oil has become "absolute," in the words of Environment Minister Phillipe Martin. In its decision, the court found Continue reading →

Fossil Free Valdosta

Fossil Free Valdosta, a facebook page just launched by members of S.A.V.E. (Students Against Violating the Environment), under VSU’s new solar canopy:

A student campaign calling on Valdosta State University to freeze any new investments in the fossil fuel industry immediately and divest within the next five years.

You can help divestment by signing their petition. That will help VSU stop wasting investments on fossil fuels while solar stocks skyrocket. And that will help undermine the political power of the fossil fuel industry. After all, all our investments are political, and there’s nothing neutral about investing in climate wreckage.

-jsq

European utilities scared of renewable energy

Another reason Southern Company needs to get on with a smart grid, using its biggest private R&D outfit in the U.S. Now that solar has reached grid parity with everything including natural gas (and years since it passed nuclear), if the utilities don’t get out in front, they’re going to be left behind.

Derek Mead wrote for Motherboard yesterday, European Utilities Say They Can’t Make Money Because There’s Too Much Renewable Energy,

Renewable energy has been on a tear the past few years, with growth in many countries spurred by subsidies for wind and solar power. Now the heads of 10 European utility companies say EU subsidies should end, because they've got more renewable energy than they know what to do with.

The 10 CEOs in question, who refer to themselves as the Magritte group because they first met in an art gallery, represent companies that control about half the power capacity of Europe. The group gave a press conference today— Reuters says that 10 such executives giving a joint public statement is “unprecedented”—to hammer home a message they’ve been trumpeting ahead of an EU energy summit in 2014: There’s too much energy capacity, which has driven prices down so far that they can’t make any money.

As long as there are nukes or coal plants, there’s too much capacity. European utilities need to get on with things like Continue reading →

Solar vs. fossil fuel stocks

Should Harvard President Drew Faust worry that “Significantly constraining investment options risks significantly constraining investment returns”? Actually, if Harvard has been wasting investments in oil and gas for the past year, its endowment has lost a bundle. Ditto VSU.

Let’s compare stock performance of Guggenheim Solar ETF (NYSE:TAN) which invests in solar stocks with the PowerShares DB Energy Fund (NYSEARCA:DBE), which invests in oil and natural gas companies. Yep, that’s 120% for TAN and 0% for DBE:

TAN solar v DBE oil and gas 1 year

Sure, if you go back farther, solar stocks continued to drop after 2009 until this year: Continue reading →

AAUW Candidates’ Forum 15 October 2013

This one will include questions from the audience (here are videos of last year’s AAUW forum.) This announcement received yesterday. -jsq

The American Association for University Women is hosting a Candidates’ Forum on Oct. 15 (please see the announcement below), and we are hoping to let everyone in the area know about it. I am contacting various media in the hope that a public service announcement can be made. I would much appreciate your help!

The AAUW (American Association of University Women) will sponsor a Candidates’ Forum on Tuesday, Oct. 15th, at 7 p.m. in the VSU Continuing Education Building Auditorium, located at 903 N Patterson St. Candidates for the upcoming Municipal Elections will give brief presentations and the audience will be invited to ask moderated questions. For further information, contact Dr. Diane Holliman (229-560-8645) and visit the AAUW website at http://valdosta-ga.aauw.net.

Thank you so much.

Dr. Patricia Marks
Professor Emerita, Dept. of English
Valdosta State University
******
AAUW Corresponding Secretary

Corrupt cocaine cops in Florida

This could never happen in Georgia, right? Right?

Matt Gutman, Erin Brady, Seni Tienabeso and Candace Smith wrote for abc News 9 October 2013, How Undercover Cops in a Florida City Make Millions Selling Cocaine,

Police in a Southern Florida community outside of Fort Lauderdale have been using a controversial tactic to conduct cocaine sting operations and have been raking in millions of dollars in the process.

For years, the Sunrise, Fla., police have been conducting what are called “reverse stings.” Undercover police detectives play the role of cocaine dealers and try to lure in potential buyers who drive or fly in from all over the country with wads of cash. If the stings are successful, informants can receive large payouts and police can seize cash, cars and other non-monetary assets. The busts have Continue reading →