Tag Archives: LAKE

How fast industries can change: mobile phones and solar power

In only half a dozen years Microsoft went from laughing at the iPhone to admitting MS had none of the mobile phone or mobile device market, while Apple became the most valuable company in the world. Another entrenched industry, electric power will also change radically in only a few years, and solar power will win like the Internet did.

MG Siegler of Google Ventures blogged this on ParisLemon 20 September 2013, What A Difference Six Years Makes…

Steve Ballmer, 2007:

Steve Ballmer

Right now we’re selling millions and millions and millions of phones a year. Apple is selling zero phones a year.

Steve Ballmer, a few months later:

It’s sort of a funny question. Would I trade 96% of the market for 4% of the market? (Laughter.) I want to have products that appeal to everybody.

Now we’ll get a chance to go through this again in phones and music players. There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance.

Steve Ballmer, yesterday:

Mobile devices. We have almost no share.

And it wasn’t just Steve Jobs riding Moore’s Law on an iPhone: Continue reading →

Spectra backtracks about pipeline incident

Spectra flip-flops on major safety events as well as on whose houses are beautiful and whether Georgia cities can use gas from its pipeline from PCB-polluted Anniston, Alabama to Orlando, Florida. And Spectra was fined recently for violating both federal safety requirements and its own operating procedures, including for pipeline monitoring. Oh, and its natural gas comes from fracking.

Remember Spectra rep Andrea Grover, quoted by the VDT? Well, she’s been quoted elsewhere, too. Mike Benard wrote for CSRHUB 5 April 2013, Spectra Energy ‘Backtracks’ on Methane Incident: First: “Nothing Released …. No Smoke …. No Incident”; Then Admits: Methane & Hydrocarbons Released,

Spectra Energy Corporation (SE, NYSE) was forced to backtrack on dismissive assertions it made about a nighttime incident at its huge natural gas compressor station in Bedford County, PA, after persistent neighbors and a reporter kept pressing the company and state regulators for facts.

A natural gas compressor station, like the ones Spectra says will be along its proposed AL-GA-FL pipeline, maybe in Dougherty County, maybe in Lowndes County; we don’t know.

Now Spectra could say this was a different kind of compressor because it’s a different kind of operation in Pennsylvania. What kind? Fracking: Continue reading →

VDT starts to catch up about pipeline

Spectra used Dougherty County Commissioner Ewell Lyle’s question in answer the Valdosta Daily Times about that natural gas pipeline from Alabama to Florida. And notice how they’re saying Tallapoosa County, Alabama now, and not mentioning PCB-polluted Anniston, Alabama as the source of the pipeline? The VDT map conveniently clips Alabama completely out of the picture. How about we clip Georgia out of the pipeline and install solar power instead?

Matthew Woody wrote on the front page of the VDT today, Pipeline intersects area: Sabal Trail project runs from Alabama to Florida,

Andrea Grover, Public Affairs Representative from Spectra Energy, said that initially the pipe was going to be a closed system, but Spectra Energy decided to turn the pipe into an “open access pipe,” meaning that any area along the pipe could potentially tap into the system to either receive gas from or supply gas to the pipeline. Describing the pipeline as a highway, Grover said it will have on-ramps and off-ramps. They provide the transportation of the gas, and once the pipe is in service, communities are encouraged to work with Sabal.

Dougherty County Commissioner Ewell Lyle suggested letting locals tap it less than a week ago.

Note that weasel word: “potentially”. I could “potentially” tap into the two (2) pipelines that cross my property, but decades they’ve been there and that’s never happened.

When asked about the benefits of the pipe, Grover stated, Continue reading →

WALB on Spectra about that AL-GA-FL natural gas pipeline

Maps and video about that pipeline public hearing in Dougherty County. Spectra does have per-county maps and has finally doled them out. What did Lee County do to make the pipeline avoid it entirely? And what about Georgians even getting to use that natural gas?

Devin Knight wrote for WALB Sep 16, 2013 6:14 PM EDT Updated: Sep 21, 2013 6:14 PM EDT, Dougherty County residents ask for pipeline to be re-routed,

“Why not go ahead and put a tap in, or whatever you call it so we could utilize that gas instead of just being a transit through our area,” Lyle said.

WALB didn’t record an answer, but stay tuned, Spectra heard him.

Unfortunately, Commissioner Lyle is also now singing Spectra’s tune: Continue reading →

Spectra speaks about that AL-GA-FL natural gas pipeline

One of the promised public hearings appeared within a week, and the pipeline company made all sorts of promises and emphasized how busy and important it is. The pipeline rep caused opposition from a second county commissioner, and inadvertently revealed some possible means of opposition.

Carlton Fletcher wrote for AlbanyHerald.com 16 September 2013, Spectra official discusses natural gas pipeline,

Brian Fahrenthold, the state and local government affairs director for Houston-based Spectra Energy, assured commissioners and landowners impacted by the pipeline that his company will “meet or exceed all safety standards” required by federal officials during construction of the $3 billion project that will, when completed, send 1 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day into Florida from central Alabama.

“We’re in the early rows of activity right now, and this is a marathon,” Fahrenthold said. “We operate close to 19,000 miles of pipeline in the United States, and we have an outstanding safety record. Almost 15 percent of the natural gas used in the United States flows through our system.”

Fahrenthold answered questions from commissioners and from members of the public during a lengthy public hearing, assuring those gathered at the downtown Government Center Spectra is open to any pipeline route alterations that are viable.

“We keep hearing that there is an alternate route being proposed by some (landowners) in the community, but we haven’t seen it,” Fahrenthold said. “If there is such a route proposal, we’re open to it.”

Well, that’s cute: he says landowners should band together and do the pipeline company’s work for it. How about we start by demanding to see Spectra’s current route maps?

And look at this! Remember Commissioner Ewell Lyle spoke up for closely monitoring the pipeline and noted it wasn’t just a local issue? Spectra listened: Continue reading →

Lee County has its agenda packets online

Lee County has 28,575 people; Lowndes has 111,885 (July 2011). Yet tiny Lee does what mighty Lowndes doesn’t: it puts its agenda packets online. I’d bet it doesn’t even waste county resources putting them into a fancy printed binder. When will Lowndes County move into the 21st century?

-jsq

Pipeline concerns about Flint River and Floridan Aquifer heard by Dougherty County Commission

Someone reminded her County Commission they can do something about the pipeline, only a few counties from here. At least one county commissioner there gets it that “it’s clearly not just a local issue. It’s a Southeast issue.” And the pipeline company has now promised public hearings in that county.

Dougherty County Chairman Jeff Sinyard followed up within a few days on his promise to do something. Carlton Fletcher wrote for AlbanyHerald.com 9 September 2013, County Commission hears concerns about pipeline,

Dinorah Hall told commissioners at their business session that the proposed $3 billion pipeline would pose danger to the environment and to residents in the path of the 465-mile project.

“It is within your authority to advocate citizens’ safety first by proposing an alternate site for the large, industrial compression station that will be used to push the gas through the pipeline and an alternate route away from more heavily populated areas,” Hall said. “Just imagine the catastrophic impact a pipeline disaster could have on our natural resources such as the Flint River and our underground aquifer.”

Commission Chairman Jeff Sinyard encouraged Hall and other impacted landowners to attend the commission’s work session Monday to discuss their concerns with project representatives.

“It is very, very important that they meet every legal and environmental requirement on this project,” Sinyard said of Houston-based Spectra Energy Corp., which is building the pipeline to supply gas to Florida Power & Light. “We expect them to use professional, non-bullying dialogue when talking with our citizens, and we’re going to do everything we can to see that this project negatively impacts the least number of citizens.”

Local residents are still just NIMBY, but District 4 Commissioner Ewell Lyle said, Continue reading →

Better chance of upward mobility from Valdosta MSA than Atlanta

A child born in the bottom fifth by income around here has a better chance of reaching the top fifth than in Atlanta. But that’s not saying much. And we can change this.

David Leonhardt wrote for NY Times 22 July 2013, In Climbing Income Ladder, Location Matters: A study finds the odds of rising to another income level are notably low in certain cities, like Atlanta and Charlotte, and much higher in New York and Boston. 4.3% Valdosta MSA vs. 4.0% Atlanta MSA. But 5.9% Brunswick, 6.0% Vidalia, and 8.8% Elijay. That’s the highest in Georgia.

Pretty much anywhere in Florida is higher than 4.3%.

Then there’s 11.2% San Francisco, Continue reading →

Which first to get more solar: fight big money or new technology?

In Georgia we’re still below 1% electric power generation from solar, and we can get to 20-30% with no new technology whatever. Georgia Power’s nuke overruns are already causing a reaction of still more distributed solar. Yet even that good news gets the usual reaction: “This is necessary but not sufficient: a breakthrough in energy storage technology is required.” Which just ain’t so; distributed rooftop solar alone is plenty to move Georgia way ahead. That’s why Edison Electric Institute calls distributed solar a massively disruptive influence on the utilities’ century-old cozy baseload model. What’s holding solar back is those same big utilities, who understandably don’t want to change their long-time cash cow. But they’re going to change, and pretty quickly.

People unfamiliar with the sunny south (which is most of the world south of, oh, Germany), still say things like this: Continue reading →

Pipeline opposition growing

Why should Georgia landowners have to cede property rights to benefit nobody in Georgia, and at risk of our aquifer and environment? But Dougherty County residents are still playing NIMBY instead of trying to stop it entirely.

Carlton Fletcher wrote for the Albany Herald 7 September 2013, Local opposition to natural gas pipeline growing,

Dougherty County landowners who’ve been contacted by representatives of a group planning the 465-mile Sabal Trail natural gas pipeline projected to run underneath their property say they’re not convinced by assurances that the $3 billion project is safe.

And they’re preparing to challenge the pipeline even as project surveyors seek access to their land.

“This is not just a threat to my land, to our region’s water, Continue reading →