{"id":445,"date":"2012-10-04T14:21:04","date_gmt":"2012-10-04T18:21:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/10\/georgia-powers-bowers-pushes-solar-misinformation-out-the-next-fifty-years.html"},"modified":"2012-10-04T14:21:04","modified_gmt":"2012-10-04T18:21:04","slug":"georgia-powers-bowers-pushes-solar-misinformation-out-the-next-fifty-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/10\/georgia-powers-bowers-pushes-solar-misinformation-out-the-next-fifty-years.html","title":{"rendered":"Georgia Power’s Bowers pushes solar misinformation out the next fifty years"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nPaul Bowers, CEO of Georgia Power, doubled down on baseload nuclear,\ncoal, and natural gas for the next fifty years.\nWhat’s he scared of?\n<\/p>\n

\nNick Coltrain wrote for OnlineAthens yesterday,\n\nRenewable push not in the cards for Ga. Power<\/a>,\n<\/p>\n

\n

\n\n\"Georgia<\/a>\n\u201cRenewable (energy sources are) going to have a sliver,\u201d\nBowers said of fuels to create electricity. \u201cIs it going to be\n2 or 4 percent? That’s yet to be determined. Economics will drive\nthat. But you always remember (that renewable energy is) an\nintermittent resource. It’s not one you can depend on 100 percent of\nthe time.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nOne time you can depend on it is hot summer days when everybody is\nair conditioning, which is why\n\n\"Roger<\/a>\n\nAustin Energy flipped in one year<\/a>\nfrom spouting such nonsense to deploying the most aggressive solar rooftop\nrebate program in the country.\nAustin Energy did the math and found those rebates would cost\nabout the same as a coal plant and would generate as much energy.\nAnd when it is needed most, unlike the fossilized baseload grid,\nwhich \nleft millions without power in the U.S. in June<\/a>\nand\n\nhundreds of millions without power in India in July.<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\nBowers knows better than the nonsense he just spouted;\nas recently as\n\nNovember 2011 he told Georgia Trend,<\/a>\n<\/p>\n\n\n

\n\u201cQuite frankly, I see the cost curve coming down significantly\nfor solar applications, and that’s very, very positive.\u201d\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nAnd he added,\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cIt does coincide with our peaking requirement. When customers\nstart arriving at home in the afternoon from 4:00 till 7:00, that’s\nwhen we usually peak with highest demand and capacity\nrequirements.\u201d\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nSpeculation in a later post as to why he’s doubling down on denial now.\nBack to the OnlineAthens article.\n<\/p>\n

\n

\n\u201cWhat we don’t want to do is have the (Public Service)\nCommission to say we want to be green and accept a higher price that\nputs upward pressure on everybody,\u201d Bowers said. \u201cOur\nposition is we’re going to raise the price for everyone. Even if you\ndidn’t want solar, you would be paying for it because of the\nelevated costs.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n\n\"Nuclear<\/a>\nThat’s pretty rich coming from a company that\n\ngot the legislature to mandate in 2009<\/a>\nthat Georgia Power can (and is already)\n\ncharge customers around 5% extra for power from the new nukes at Plant Vogtle<\/a>\nthat nobody is getting yet and won’t for years, if ever.\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nFurther, Bowers said advances in coal-burning technology make it\npossible to use even the least-efficient types of coal by converting\nit into a synthetic natural gas, complete with the end result of a\nfootprint similar to the amount of pollutants to come out of a\nnatural gas plant.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nIf so-called “advanced coal” is so good, why is\n\n\"Cobb<\/a>\nGeorgia Power’s parent Southern Company (SO)\nis trying to get the Mississippi PSC to do what the Georgia\nlegislature already did and approve a stealth tax rate hike\nfor Mississippi Power customers to build its pilot\n\nKemper Coal Plant in Mississippi<\/a>?\nAnd why has Cobb EMC this year suddenly\nswitched from coal to solar for new power?<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\n\n\"Southern<\/a>\nIf nuclear is so great, why does it take SO\n\na three-legged regulatory capture stool<\/a>\nof a legislated stealth rate hike, GA PSC approval of Georgia Power\npassing cost overruns through to customers, and an $8.33 billion federal\nloan guarantee?\n<\/p>\n

\nI think Bower’s great big stonewall has to do with growing competition from\nanother source of power with plenty of private capital waiting to invest\nif we can get SO and Georgia Power’s regulatory-capture stonewall out\nof the way.\nMore on that in a later post.\nOr Georgia Power could follow the examples of Austin Energy and Cobb EMC and\nstart acting like its motto: “a citizen wherever we serve.”\n<\/p>\n

\n-jsq\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paul Bowers, CEO of Georgia Power, doubled down on baseload nuclear, coal, and natural gas for the next fifty years. What’s he scared of? Nick Coltrain wrote for OnlineAthens yesterday, Renewable push not in the cards for Ga. Power, \u201cRenewable (energy sources are) going to have a sliver,\u201d Bowers said of fuels to create electricity. […]","protected":false},"author":1,"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":[97,606,216,1127,142,14,49,17,8,18,2,19,20,104,21,22,23,24,36],"tags":[8736,8794,824,8753,8818,8746,8704,8721,8707,8701,8708,8699,397,8709,392,1621,8702,8710,12,7,8737,1024,8711,107,8712,8713,1135,8714,108,6,8716],"class_list":["post-445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-austinenergy","category-coal","category-cobb-emc","category-cwip","category-economy","category-elections","category-ga-psc","category-georgia","category-georgia-power","category-government","category-history","category-law","category-nuclear","category-planning","category-politics","category-renewable-energy","category-solar","category-wind","tag-activism","tag-austinenergy","tag-baseload","tag-coal","tag-cobb-emc","tag-cwip","tag-economy","tag-elections","tag-ga-psc","tag-georgia","tag-georgia-power","tag-government","tag-grid","tag-history","tag-india","tag-kemper-coal-plant","tag-lake","tag-law","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-nuclear","tag-paul-bowers","tag-planning","tag-plant-vogtle","tag-politics","tag-renewable-energy","tag-smart-grid","tag-solar","tag-southern-company","tag-valdosta","tag-wind"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-7b","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}