\nJoin POLITICO for a lunch conversation with energy experts and\npolicy leaders\n\n \nWhen: Wednesday, September 5, 2012 at 12:00 pm ET\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \n\n \nGeorgia has similar real renewable energy potential,\nplus studies by\n\nGeorgia Tech<\/a>\nand Duke<\/a>\nindicate that Georgia doesn’t need any additional total electric power\nanyway, if it gets on with energy efficiency.\nAdd\n\nsolar<\/a> and\n\nwind<\/a> instead of natural gas, and we can retire a lot of\ncoal plants.\nWith no need for fracking.\n<\/p>\n \nI have an idea:\nlet’s elect Public Service Commissioners and legislators who are not\nbeholden to the utilities they will regulate!\n<\/p>\n \n-jsq\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Numerous eminent current and former regulators, governors, and legislators’ best advice for how to keep fracking from polluting our aquifers and drinking water: “strict regulation”. As Gandhi reputedly said about western civilization: that would be a good idea. But in Georgia and many other places, where the regulatory agency (GA PSC) and the legislature are […]","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":[47,141,14,264,265,16,50,17,8,18,2,20,21,22,32,23,24,36],"tags":[1761,1760,8719,8745,8704,8754,8755,8706,8722,308,8707,8708,8699,8702,8710,12,562,158,8711,1765,8712,8715,8713,8714,8716],"class_list":["post-516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-climate-change","category-co2","category-economy","category-energy-conservation","category-energy-efficiency","category-environment","category-epa","category-ga-psc","category-georgia","category-georgia-power","category-government","category-law","category-planning","category-politics","category-pollution","category-renewable-energy","category-solar","category-wind","tag-5-september-2012","tag-charlotte","tag-climate-change","tag-co2","tag-economy","tag-energy-conservation","tag-energy-efficiency","tag-environment","tag-epa","tag-fracking","tag-ga-psc","tag-georgia-power","tag-government","tag-lake","tag-law","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-natural-gas","tag-north-carolina","tag-planning","tag-politico","tag-politics","tag-pollution","tag-renewable-energy","tag-solar","tag-wind"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-8k","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516","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=516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Energy](\"\/blog\/images\/6a0120a58214e4970b01774488b35a970d-pi.jpg\")
<\/a>\nas they discuss current energy legislation, the\nenergy debates facing the nation, policy options and what’s ahead in\nthe year to come. Speakers include: ClearView Energy Partners’ Kevin\nBook; former Administrator of the EPA and former Director of the\nWhite House Office on Climate Change, Carol Browner; Rep. Ed Markey\n(Mass.); former Gov. Bill Richardson (NM) and former Gov. Bill\nRitter (Colo.).\n<\/p>\n![](\"\/blog\/images\/6a0120a58214e4970b01630596f747970d-pi.jpg\")
<\/a>\nThis event was in North Carolina, where the late John Blackburn, Ph.D.\nalready reported two years ago that\n\nthe whole state could be powered by wind, sun, existing hydro, landfill gas, and less natural gas than is already in use,<\/a>\nwhy do we need fracking at all?\n<\/p>\n