Tag Archives: LAKE

Valdosta Utilities Department 5-Year Action Plan

Received 26 April 2013. Basically Valdosta is accelerating its plans to do something about wastewater, including adding pumpstations and force mains, as well as relocating the Withlacoochee Wastewater Treatment Plant uphill. Here are the summary pages; there’s much more detail in the plan. -jsq

Utilities Department 5-Year Action Plan:

Since 1992, the City has received $179 million in SPLOST funding and over the same time period has invested nearly $168 million in capital projects for the Water and Wastewater system. This includes SPLOST funding, system revenues, bonds, and GEFA loans.

Since 2009, the Utilities Department has expended over $49 million on sewer system improvement with approximately $5.6 million spent on the Withlacoochee Treatment Plant. When the projects listed below are completed by December 2018, the City will have invested approximately $230 million in capital projects for its Utilities system from 1992 to 2018, a 26-year period.

PUMP STATION, FORCE MAIN, HEADWORKS AND EQUALIZATION BASIN PROJECT

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The Super Bowl of disruptive distributed energy: Georgia Power and Southern Company are losing

It’s literally game-changing time with solar power at the electric utilities, while Georgia Power and Southern Company are sticking with big baseload nuclear, “clean coal”, and natural gas. They cannot win if they don’t even try.

Steven Schultz wrote for Physorg 6 May 2013, Growth of ‘distributed’ electricity generation could transform utility systems,

(Phys.org) —The U.S. electric utility industry faces a critical juncture as new technology and declining prices allow a more “distributed” system of small-scale generators, renewable energy installations and energy-efficiency strategies, according to a group of high-level energy industry executives and regulators who met at Princeton University recently.

“We have a monumental challenge,” said Jon Wellinghoff, chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, who participated in the all-day meeting Friday, April 26. Citing commentary by an analyst who warned of a potential “train wreck” in the industry, Wellinghoff outlined converging tends in which technological advances are allowing consumers and companies to take matters of reliability, security and efficiency into their own hands, while utility companies are under pressure to maintain and upgrade a national electricity system that is broadly accessible.

“Everybody saw the Super Bowl,” Wellinghoff said, referring to the half-hour blackout that disrupted the 2013 football championship.

He didn’t mention that after blacking out the Super Bowl Continue reading →

F for Georgia state integrity

Worst of all fifty states; worse than South Carolina and worse than Michigan: that’s why Georgia’s gets an F on its corruption risk report card from State Integrity Investigation. Gov. Nathan Deal did just sign an ethics bill, but as William Perry, executive director of Common Cause Georgia says,

“It’s like you’re starving for a meal and somebody gave you a saltine cracker.
It’s chock full of loopholes.”

I wonder if this lack of ethics in state government has anything to do with widespread rural poverty in Georgia?

-jsq

Agricultural poverty resources meeting

Received yesterday from Jerome Tucker about the USDA StrikeForce Initiative: “Unfortunately, 90 percent of America’s persistent poverty counties are in rural America. USDA’s StrikeForce aims to increase investment in rural communities for technical assistance and other resources in priority, poverty-stricken communities.” -jsq

StrikeForce Georgia Informational Meeting

Informational Meeting
Thursday, May 23, 2013
9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
(Individual media interview time will be from 1:00-2:00PM)
Hosted By: Fort Valley State University
Agricultural Technology Conference Center,
Camp John Hope Road, Fort Valley, GA 31030

This free meeting is open to the general public, partners and members of the press to get a better understanding of this expanding USDA initiative and to learn where it's heading in Georgia!

Pre-Registration is requested by May 20, 2013 by emailing Continue reading →

Harrisburg just keeps getting worse

After Harrisburg, PA defaulted on its incinerator bonds, started selling off pieces of itself, and threatened bankruptcy (twice), now the SEC is suing the city for fraud.

James O’Toole wrote for CNN Money 6 May 2013, SEC sues financially troubled Harrisburg,

The Securities and Exchange Commission has sued the city of Harrisburg for fraud, alleging that officials in the Pennsylvania capital misled the public about the city’s financial condition.

The SEC says the misleading statements came in the city’s 2009 budget report, its annual and mid-year financial statements and a “State of the City” address. The case marks the first time the SEC has charged a municipality with misleading investors in statements made outside of securities documents.

Harrisburg has been mired in

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Look at Southern Company’s safety performance –SO CEO Fanning

SO CEO Fanning on Fukushima At last year’s Southern Company Stockholder Meeting, Southern Company CEO Thomas A. Fanning said about the U.S. nuclear industry and Southern Company’s safety performance:

And if you look at our performance, we absolutely meet the standards that our customers expect and frankly deserve. So let’s start there.

Since then SO has not managed to pour the concrete base correctly at Plant Vogtle and not managed to get a reactor vessel from Savannah port to the site. Also existing Vogtle Unit 1 had a fire while Unit 2 was shut down for almost all of March 2013. The two Plant Hatch reactors, same design as Fukushima, so far as we know still have substandard fire protection and has a chronic problem of radioactive tritium leaking into groundwater. Tritium, even the smallest amounts of which can have negative health effects. And what gets into the watershed spreads in the watershed. The U.S. nuclear industry in general has problems with alcohol, drugs, and broken equipment. But back to SO CEO Fanning about Fukushima: Continue reading →

San Onofre inside source: keep it shut down

An employee still inside and a longtimer since retired both say the San Onofre nuclear reactor should stay shut down. Operator Southern California Edison says it’s safe to restart at 70% power, but the Nuclear Regulatory Commission won’t show the public Socal Edison’s study about that. Which seems safest to you? Trust the operator that let it break in the first place, or keep it shut down?

JW August wrote for 10bnews.com 25 April 2013, San Onofre insider says NRC should not allow nuclear restart: Team 10 speaks with former NRC employee, insider,

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Gigabit fiber Internet from Vermont Telephone Company: half the price of Google fiber

BroadbandVT.org logo Tiny Vermont demonstrates that the Internet access most telephone and cable companies are selling us is way overpriced for way too little speed.

Look Out Google Fiber, $35-A-Month Gigabit Internet Comes to Vermont (by Shalini Ramachandran for WSJ 26 April 2013)

Heads up Google GOOG +1.94% Fiber: A rural Vermont telephone company might just have your $70 gigabit Internet offer beat.

1,000 Mbps

Vermont Telephone Co. (VTel), whose footprint covers 17,500 homes in the Green Mountain State, has begun to offer gigabit Internet speeds for $35 a month, using a brand new fiber network. So far about 600 Vermont homes have subscribed.

Even more interesting:

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Cool solar gadget

We don’t even need new solar innovations for solar to take over most power generation through economies of scale, but we will start seeing more innovative solar gadgets like this one, leading to even more distribution of solar power.

Just stick this portable outlet to your window to start using solar power (by Sarah Laskow for Grist 29 April 2013)

We have seen a lot of solar chargers in our day. And among all of them, this is the first one we’ve seen that we will definitely run out and buy as soon as it’s made available in the U.S. It’s a portable socket that gets its power from the sun rather than the grid. You plug into a window instead of into the wall. It’s easy.

That was the whole point, according to the designers, Kyohu Song and Boa Oh: “We tried to design a portable socket, so that users can use it intuitively without special training,” they write.

It’s got solar panels, a plug, and batteries for 10 hours. It won’t run your air conditioner, but it will charge your phone.

Here’s another company’s take on the same idea from last year, and you can buy that one right now. Only in bulk, apparently. But stay tuned: we’ll see more ways to put solar chargers on your window, your car’s window, your car, your hat, etc….

-jsq