{"id":3788,"date":"2013-06-02T10:46:53","date_gmt":"2013-06-02T14:46:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=3788"},"modified":"2013-06-02T10:53:41","modified_gmt":"2013-06-02T14:53:41","slug":"bubba-mcdonalds-solar-evangelism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/06\/bubba-mcdonalds-solar-evangelism.html","title":{"rendered":"Bubba McDonald’s solar evangelism"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nI’ve thanked Bubba McDonald for\r\n\r\nbeing serious about solar<\/a>.\r\nHowever, 500 MW by Georgia Power in several years is nowhere\r\nnear enough, when \r\nNew Jersey has 1,000 MW already installed<\/a>.\r\nWhat we need in south Georgia is distributed solar power\r\nfor local jobs and direct reduction of electricity bills.\r\nMaking\r\n\r\na solar monopoly as in HB 657<\/a> wouldn’t solve that problem;\r\nit would actually hinder\r\n\r\na real distributed solution<\/a>.\r\nInstead we need to reform that antique 1973 Territorial Electric Service Act\r\nto enable financing for distributed solar.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nJim Galloway wrote for the AJC yesterday,\r\n\r\nGOP revolutionaries push Georgia Power to embrace solar energy<\/a>,\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

\r\nLauren “Bubba” McDonald Jr. has spent more than four\r\ndecades in and around the state Capitol. That fact alone should\r\nautomatically disqualify him as a rabid revolutionary.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nAnd yet here he is, attempting to force real, radical change upon\r\none of this state’s most staid and revered institutions. McDonald is\r\nthe leader of a new and very Republican effort to require that\r\nGeorgia Power give solar energy a chance.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThe white-haired, former state lawmaker and 1990 candidate for\r\ngovernor serves on the five-member state Public Service Commission,\r\nwhich is now taking stock of the 20-year plan that Georgia Power is\r\nrequired to submit to the utility board. The forecast includes no\r\nnew provisions for solar energy.Yet.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n”I’m going to have some solar in it — significant solar.\r\nI believe I can make it happen, even if the power company is not\r\nthat excited about it,” said McDonald. He’s pretty sure two\r\nmore commissioners will help provide the necessary majority. A vote\r\nis scheduled for mid-July.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nMcDonald would like Georgia Power’s future portfolio to include 500\r\nor more megawatts of energy generated by solar power — roughly\r\na fifth of the generating capacity of the two nuclear power plants\r\noperating at Plant Vogtle.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nMeanwhile, New Jersey’s 1,000 MW is almost as much as the 1,200 MW\r\neach of the two proposed new Vogtle nukes is supposed to produce.\r\nExcept NJ solar was delivered on-time and on-budget.\r\nHow about we do that in Georgia and cancel those nukes,\r\nalong with many more coal plants and natural gas plants?\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nTed Terry, who helped Georgia Solar Utilities (GaSU) promote that\r\nDublin High School solar groundbreaking<\/a> is a Democrat,\r\nand Gretchen (pictured talking to Bubba McDonald) is the Chair of the Lowndes County Democratic Party.\r\nIt’s good to see some Republicans such as McDonald catching up to\r\n\r\nour long-term advocacy of solar power<\/a>.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I’ve thanked Bubba McDonald for being serious about solar. However, 500 MW by Georgia Power in several years is nowhere near enough, when New Jersey has 1,000 MW already installed. What we need in south Georgia is distributed solar power for local jobs and direct reduction of electricity bills. Making a solar monopoly as in […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[14,17,8,18,22,23,24],"tags":[6139,8704,8707,102,8701,8708,6359,847,8702,12,7,8712,8713,8714,215,108,6],"class_list":["post-3788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy","category-ga-psc","category-georgia","category-georgia-power","category-politics","category-renewable-energy","category-solar","tag-distributed-solar","tag-economy","tag-ga-psc","tag-gasu","tag-georgia","tag-georgia-power","tag-hb-657","tag-jobs","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-politics","tag-renewable-energy","tag-solar","tag-south-georgia","tag-southern-company","tag-valdosta"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-Z6","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3788"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3788\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3791,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3788\/revisions\/3791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}