Tag Archives: Sabal Trail Transmission

Solar faster, cheaper, no cooling water, no leaks, no explosions

Way back in 2014 I calculated that half the right of way acreage of the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline could produce just as much electricity,
cheaper, faster, taking no land, using no cooling water, risking no leaks or explosions.
Solar is even cheaper now, doubling deployed capacity every two years,
and even Duke, FPL, and Georgia Power are building solar farms everywhere.
So why do utilities persist in building more pipelines?

Net generation, United States, all sectors, monthly, U.S. EIA.

Every electric utility can read that chart from the U.S. Energy Information Agency,
which shows wind (the middle orange line) and solar (the green line coming up from the bottom) adding up to almost all of “other renewables” (the top blue line),
with nothing else growing like that.
All the pipelines rammed through regulatorially captured agencies
don’t come close Continue reading →

Ex-military infiltrators of pipeline opposition

Be sure that if you are at all successful in opposing a pipeline you
will get infiltrators, whether FBI or private security. Be prepared
to deal with it, whether by checking backgrounds, or comparing
lists, or by some other methods.

One of the most effective methods
appears to be exposing what the pipeline company and their hired
hands are up to, as The Intercept_ did about infiltrators at
Standing Rock, using leaks from private security
firm TigerSwan, which was hired by pipeline company Energy Transfer Partners (ETP)
to “protect” its Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL).

THE INFILTRATOR: How an Undercover Oil Industry Mercenary Tricked Pipeline Opponents Into Believing He Was One of Them, Alleen Brown, The Intercept_, 30 December 2018,

Joel McCollough, far right, at a climate march launch event in Chicago hosted by Food and Water Watch in April 2017. Photo: Courtesy of Gloria Araya, in
The Intercept_.

What he’s certain of is that the glimmer of opportunity he saw at
the beginning of the pipeline fight was extinguished when The
Intercept published more than 100 TigerSwan situation reports leaked
by a former operative, revealing the security firm’s extensive
surveillance efforts, coordination with law enforcement, and
comparisons of water protectors to jihadi fighters. …

He remembers thinking at one time, “If they watch their p’s
and q’s, they will be the standard. They’ll be the company that
everybody’s gonna use.” The former contractor laughed.
“That didn’t happen.”

DAPL is a petroleum products pipeline, but we heard some of the same Continue reading →

Homerville, GA pipeline explosion 2018-08-17

A pipeline much smaller than Sabal Trail destroyed a business
in Homerville, Georgia yesterday.

Photo: GA Insurance and Fire Commissioner, of
Coffee Corner demolished, Homerville, GA.

So small the U.S. agency supposedly responsible for safety
doesn’t even show it in its maps.
A pipeline is owned by Southern Company,
and apparently originates on my property,
starting from another pipeline half-owned by Southern Company.

That SONAT pipeline

in 2014 was snagged by a dirt road ditch puller,
sending a plume of dust 300 feet into the air.
If there had been a spark, people I’ve known all my life
might not have had homes to go back to.

So why does Sabal Trail claim its 500-mile-long IED is safe?
And why is Southern Company wasting our resources and risking
our safety by buying into pipelines while ramping down its
new investments in solar power?

Brunswick Daily News, 17 August 2018,

The Latest: Leaking gas blamed for coffee shop explosion, Continue reading →

FPL parent NextEra Energy admits solar and wind far better investments than pipelines 2018-01-26

Even Sabal Trail partner NextEra Energy’s earnings call has
far more about record solar and wind deployment and earnings
(“added $0.67 per share”)
than about pipeline declining earnings (“added $0.10 per share”)
and misinformation,

claiming Sabal Trail is operational
and on schedule when

it isn’t.

Which is better, NextEra, $0.67 or $0.10 per share?
Oh, wait, effectively you answered that:
“As the world’s current leader in wind, solar, and storage
development….”.

Solar, NextEra Energy

One sentence is NextEra’s only mention of Sabal Trail; nothing about
the Sierra Club lawsuit against FERC
that less than a week later saw

the DC Circuit Court reject all requests for rehearing,
meaning as early as next week the court may mandate shutting down Sabal Trail.
NextEra company FPL is the sole remaining customer listed in Sabal Trail’s
custoner index.
Maybe it’s time to bail out and get on with solar power in the Sunshine State.

NextEra Energy, via Motley Fool,
26 January 2018,

NEE earnings call for the period ending December 31, 2017,

CEO and Chairman James L. Robo:

Fourth, we’re advancing our renewable product offerings as we
prepare for the next phase of renewable development. As a result,
our prospects for new renewables growth has never been stronger. As Continue reading →

The shift has come: GE, Siemens massive job losses as fossil fuels crash and the sun rises

The carbon bubble is bursting,
as jobs fly from some of the biggest companies in the world,
because solar and wind power are taking over right now.
It’s too late to bet on the wrong nuclear horse
or the wrong pipelnie snake.
Get out of fossil fuels now: the sun is rising.

Tiffany Hsu and Clifford Krauss,
New York Times, 7 December 2017,

G.E. Cuts Jobs as It Navigates a Shifting Energy Market,

General Electric, whose new leadership is moving to eliminate bloat
and grapple with the fallout from earlier, ill-timed decisions, is
taking drastic steps to keep pace with seismic shifts in the global
energy industry.

Brandon Kochkodin, Bloomberg, 7 December 2017,
GE Ranks First in 2017 Downsizing After 12,000 More Job Cuts.

The company said on Thursday that it would cut 12,000 jobs in its
power division, reducing the size of the unit’s work force by 18
percent as part of a push to compete with international rivals in a
saturated natural gas market, adjust to “softening” in
the oil and gas sectors and stay abreast of the growing demand for
renewable energy.

Solar and wind energy technology is increasingly being deployed Continue reading →

Development Authority sells land for solar arrays

Next to ERCO Worldwide,
one of the few tenants in
VLCIA’s “eight industrial parks”,
SolAmerica is buying land for a solar farm
that will take up most of the rest of the Perimeter East Business Park.

Site Layout submitted by SolAmerica to VLCIA in 14 November 2017 meeting.

Jason A. Smith, VDT, 15 November 2017,

Solar arrays planned for land,

The Valdosta-Lowndes County Development Authority voted Tuesday to
approve the sale of 27.42 acres for $137,100 to be used for solar
arrays.

Continue reading →

Major climate change victory in U.S. House on Bastille Day 2017-07-14

On the anniversary of the French Revolution against a corrupt old regime,
the U.S. House of Representatives took a step towards independence from
the clammy grip of the fossil fuel companies.
This has direct implications on Moody AFB.
No more pipelines. Solar power now.

Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, 14 July 2017,
In Landmark Move, GOP Congress Calls Climate Change ‘Direct Threat’ to Security:
Extreme weather and rising seas threaten bases from Virginia to Guam. For the first time, a Republican House has voted to recognize that.,

One
study
last year found that rising oceans threaten 128 military
installations on the coasts, including naval facilities worth around
$100 billion.

The Pentagon has been aware for years of Continue reading →

How much solar power could Sabal Trail’s $3.2 billion buy?

The same money would buy a lot more electricity through solar power than that fracked methane pipeline could generate.

Update 2 March 2017: Added tables; fixed some typos.

Ramez Naam, his blog, 21 September 2016,

New Record Low Solar Price in Abu Dhabi — Costs Plunging Faster Than Expected

Start with Sabal Trail’s numbers

Continue reading →

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”.

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 →

Pipelines companies don’t detect corrosion or stop explosions

A reminder of why to stop pipeline companies from burying investors’ money in the ground and get on with solar power:
the pipeline that exploded in Texas last week was
half owned by Spectra Energy,

the pipeline company behind
Sabal Trail, AIM, Penneast, and numerous other fracked methane invasions
and behind thirty years of undetected corrosion resulting in leaks, explosions, property damage, and deaths.
The pipeline company didn’t detect it and couldn’t even turn it off quickly.
Want to bet that it,
like Spectra’s Pennsylvania explosion last spring, was corrosion?

A very Texas report said “no people or cattle were injured”
and also notice: “The fire is under control and will burn itself out.” Continue reading →

On the LAKE front

Citizen dialog for transparent process by the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange