Tag Archives: Pennsylvania

Georgia Power new acquisition AGL’s Pivotal LNG exporting through Jaxport

Back in May 2015, Southern Company CEO Tom Fanning and Georgia Power
CEO Paul Bowers both told me “If we can’t do coal, we have to do pipelines”.

I-75 through Atlanta, Macon, Valdosta, I-10 through Lake City
A year in the making, Southern Company bought pipeline company AGL Resources.
Turns out AGL Resources is also an LNG export company,
exporting through Jacksonville by LNG containers on trucks.
And the plot thickens with

the pending corporate takeover
of CSX Railroad by the former CEO of Canadian Pacific,
given that CSX depends a lot on carrying coal, which remember
is what Southern Company is rapidly getting away from.
Could CSX want to carry LNG?
Meanwhile, LNG containers are already rolling

down I-75 and I-10 to Jaxport,
apparently through Atlanta, Macon, Valdosta, and Lake City.

Southern Company PR, 1 July 2016,

Southern Company and AGL Resources complete merger, create a leading U.S. energy company, Continue reading →

Sen. John Barrasso predicted China emissions wrong

See the power behind FERC get it very wrong.

About China emissions, about energy and economy, about solar power, and all in one speech.

American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), YouTube, 3 December 2009 (posted 15 Dec 2009),

U.S. Senator John Barrasso speaks at ALEC in December 2009 in DC. Part 3,

Just look at China, Continue reading →

Solar farm or fracked methane pipeline with explosions?

Which do you want? A 31 megawatt solar farm such as is building next to Albany, Georgia,
built by Southern Company subsidiary Georgia Power
to power 5,000 homes, and that won’t leak or explode?
Or the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline that could blow up like




Photo: US Army/Fort Benning.




KERRY JOBE VIA AP

another Spectra Energy 36″ pipeline this morning in Pennsylvania, badly burning a man and incinerating his house?
After which Spectra declared force majeure, which Bloomberg spells out as
“Force majeure is declared to remove a company from contractual obligation because of events beyond its control.”
So apparently any promises Spectra or Sabal Trail made to you, your city, county, or state, it can just declare force majeure and get off the hook.
Even for a 40-mile-long and 4,000-foot-high plume of smoke.

Russell Grantham, AJC, 29 April 2016,

Old power gives way to new power in south Georgia, Continue reading →

Spectra reps unfamiliar with Spectra fines @ LCC 2013-12-09



Both of Spectra’s principal representatives to the Lowndes County Commission
and the Dougherty County Commission claim not to be familiar
with Spectra’s well-known public record of safety violations,
and some of what they say contradicts the public record,
so how can we believe any of their safety assertions about
Spectra’s proposed Sabal Trail Transmission pipeline?

Update 3PM: more evidence from Pennsylvania and elsewhere.

As I’ve mentioned
before,
Spectra’s Andrea Grover told us that
everyone in Pennsylvania was happy now, after I asked her
about

the Steckman Ridge compressor station leak
in front of reporter Matthew Woody,
at the

16 October 2013 Spectra meeting at Wiregrass Tech in Valdosta.
There’s more beyond
the article about pipeline fines and incidents

Woody wrote 24 November 2013 for the Valdosta Daily Times (VDT), the local
newspaper of record.

Her excuse for the compressor leak, if I recall correctly,
was that Continue reading →

From fracking to pipelines –Michael G. Noll



LTE in the VDT today. I added the images and the links. -jsq

Albert Einstein once said that “the world will not be destroyed by
those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing
anything.” This philosophy can be applied to countless social and
political issues and speaks of the dangers of apathy. Add to this
situation a lack of information and our society is truly in danger,
as companies like SPECTRA Energy not only count on our apathy, but
will also try to hoodwink us.


The Sabal Trail Pipeline currently discussed in our community is

really part of a larger story, a process known as hydraulic
fracturing, or fracking. Fracking allows companies like Halliburton
to free oil and gas trapped in geologic formations, but in a fashion
that is extremely dangerous to our environment (especially



groundwater aquifers) and human health. Exempt from the Clean Air
Act, the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act, fracking
has created countless problems for communities from Pennsylvania to
Texas, and

may soon be coming to north Georgia.

The gas pipeline under discussion is literally a tentacle Continue reading →

Spectra never bothered to check pipeline for corrosion –Spectra employee

So

“the pipe will be monitored 24/7”?
That’s not Spectra’s actual practice, according to an employee
and according to a federal fine.

By fjgallagher for Natural Gas Watch 19 June 2013,

Spectra Energy Employee: We Never Bothered to Check Natural Gas Pipeline for Corrosion,



A Spectra Energy employee acknowledged to federal inspectors that
the company never conducted key tests for corrosion on a natural gas
pipeline that was already operating at excess capacity, according to
documents recently obtained by NaturalGasWatch.org.

There’s much more in the article, including this:

Additionally, according to another May 2, 2013 letter sent under
separate cover from (PHMSA) to Holeman, Spectra failed to install
equipment to monitor whether or not the natural gas pipeline in
question was being affected by corrosion and could not produce any
records indicating that the pipeline had, in fact, ever been tested
for corrosion or that the pipeline was even structurally sound.

So that’s what
“the pipe will be monitored 24/7” means.
Good to know.

See Item 2 in that

Final Order
with fines
from the
Pipeline Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA)
to Spectra Energy CEO Gregory L. Ebel: 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 →

1.5MW solar field near Philadelphia

Far to the north of here, a botanical garden installed
more than a megawatt of solar power a year ago.
Maybe Georgia Power should ask them how it’s done.

PR of 16 June 2011,

LONGWOOD GARDENS COMMISSIONS 10-ACRE SOLAR FIELD:
Installation first step of goal to achieve 3 MW of solar energy by 2018



June 16, 2011, Kennett Square, PA — Longwood Gardens today
commissioned a new, ground-mounted solar field spanning more than 10
acres at the horticultural showplace in Kennett Square,
Pennsylvania.

One of the largest examples of clean emission-free energy in the
region, the solar field produces 1.2 MW (megawatts) of power and
will produce 1.5 MW when the final panels are installed in the
coming weeks. The fixed-tilt, 1.5 MW solar installation will produce
enough electricity to offset the usage of approximately 138 average
Pennsylvania homes and reduce Longwood’s annual carbon dioxide
emissions by 1,367 tons.

“We are always looking for ways to advance our sustainable
practices,” said Paul Redman, Longwood Gardens Director.
“It is integral to Longwood’s mission to decrease our
dependence on fossil fuels.” We want to establish best
practices and lead the way in showing communities how to live
responsibly,” said Redman.

Imagine if Georgia Power and Southern Company acted responsibly
and led the way in solar power!

Continue reading →

Harrisburg prepares to file bankruptcy

After defaulting on its incinerator bonds
and

preparing to sell off pieces of itself,
Harrisburg, PA,
is preparing to file bankruptcy.

Laura Vecsey wrote in Pennlive 16 June 2011,

Harrisburg City Council looks to introduce resolution that would allow bankruptcy paperwork to be prepared:



Harrisburg City Council member Brad Koplinski is seeking to introduce a
resolution that will allow the council to prepare paper work that might
become necessary should a majority of the council decide to file for
Chapter 9 bankruptcy.

Koplinski said the urgency of being prepared escalated Thursday when
state Sen. Jeffrey Piccola introduced legislation that called for a
state takeover of Harrisburg should the distressed city fail to adopt
the Act 47 plan it was presented Monday.

It seems Harrisburg applied for Act 47, which is apparently a state
bankruptcy protection plan last October, but now:

Continue reading →

Incinerator forces Harrisburg to sell off parking lots

After defaulting on its incinerator bonds,
Harrisburg, PA, gets even more desperate and starts selling off pieces of itself.

William Alden wrote in huffpo 15 June 2011,

Harrisburg’s ‘Bad Deal’: City Forced To Pursue Parking System Lease Despite Fears:



The finances of Harrisburg, Pa., are so desperate that local officials are
considering a deal they fear will ultimately make the city more miserable.

A state-appointed panel, charged with crafting a financial recovery plan
for the city, announced this week that Harrisburg must pursue the sale of
public assets to help resolve its fiscal crisis. The nearly-bankrupt state
capital, weighed down by debt more than four times the size of its budget,
“is not in control of its own destiny,” the state team said in a report.

Three years ago, confronted with a similar budget shortfall, the city
considered leasing parking garages and meters in exchange for quick
infusion of cash, but that deal was never approved. Last month, the offer
resurfaced when New York-based developer LambdaStar expressed renewed
interest. Some city leaders harbor a growing fear that Harrisburg will
be forced into a deal that will bleed its coffers over the course of
decades, after it surrenders valuable assets to a profit-driven company
with the power to raise rates on a captive base of customers.

But those misgivings may not matter, as a budget crisis chokes Harrisburg
into submission.

“This is a situation where Wall Street will get paid, and the little
guys on Main Street, taxpayers, are going to get stuck holding the bag,”
Harrisburg City Council Member Brad Koplinski said.

Couldn’t happen here, right?
Our local governments would never

hastily approve bonds that could force raising taxes or default,
would they?
Oh, right: they already did.

-jsq