{"id":7257,"date":"2013-12-25T11:37:15","date_gmt":"2013-12-25T16:37:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=7257"},"modified":"2013-12-25T11:40:21","modified_gmt":"2013-12-25T16:40:21","slug":"warren-buffett-moves-from-nuclear-to-wind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/12\/warren-buffett-moves-from-nuclear-to-wind.html","title":{"rendered":"Warren Buffett moves from nuclear to wind"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n
\n<\/a>
\nHow to get Georgia Power and Southern Company off of
\n
\nnuclear<\/a>
\nand onto offshore wind and onshore solar power: stop approving
\n
\nConstruction Work in Progress (CWIP)<\/a>
\nrate hikes for nukes that are already a billion dollars
\nover budget and more than a year late.
\nSo far Mississippi is doing better about this than Georgia,
\nby
\n
\ncapping ratepayer and taxpayer costs for Kemper Coal<\/a>.
\nIowa did, and look what happened.<\/p>\n

\nSimplyInfo wrote 23 December 2013,
\n
\nWhat Power Companies Do When Nuclear Is No Longer An Easy Option<\/a>,<\/p>\n

\nMidAmerican Energy in the US tried for years to force Iowa
\nresidents to pre-pay for a nuclear power plant. Those efforts
\nfailed twice<\/a>, causing the company to stop trying to pass the new
\nlaw. As of February 2013 MidAmerican Energy owner Warren Buffett continued
\nto express his interest in building two nuclear power plants in
\nIowa<\/a>. Without public funding for nuclear and a public that has
\nbeen strongly against any new nuclear plants in Iowa, Buffett changed
\nhis mind.<\/p>\n

MidAmerican Holdings ordered 1 billion USD worth of new wind turbines<\/a>. This
\nwill purchase 448 wind turbines that will make 1050 megawatts of power,
\nabout equal to one new nuclear power plant in capacity. Without public
\nsupport and public money to risk for the investment Buffet in the end
\nwas unwilling to risk his own money and invested in wind instead.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nThe windmill parts are by Siemens, but manufactured in the U.S.,
\naccording to
\n
\nPR by MidAmerican Energy 16 December 2013<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

\n
\n<\/a>
\nSiemens Energy’s Fort Madison, Iowa, facility will manufacture all
\nthe blades, while the nacelles and hubs will be assembled at the
\nSiemens plant in Hutchinson, Kansas. All projects will utilize
\nSiemens’ 2.3-megawatt, G2 platform wind turbines and will be
\ninstalled at MidAmerican Energy’s 500-megawatt Highland wind project
\nin O’Brien County; 250-megawatt Lundgren wind project in Webster
\nCounty; 138.6-megawatt Wellsburg wind project in Grundy County; and
\n117-megawatt Macksburg wind project located in Madison County. The
\norder also called for 19 wind turbines at the 44-megawatt Vienna II
\nwind project expansion in Marshall County, which is fully
\nconstructed and delivering energy to Iowans. In addition to the wind
\nturbines, the contract also includes a service, maintenance and
\nwarranty agreement.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n
\nSiemens PR of 16 Dec 2013<\/a> concurs.
\nThis is still big baseload capacity thinking, but it’s
\nmuch better than FPL and Duke’s plan for
\n
\na 100-foot gash through here
\nfor an unneeded methane pipeline<\/a>
\nwhen they could get just as much power through
\n
\nrooftop solar rebates<\/a> and build local industry at the same time.<\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/a>
\nHey, what if Georgia Power ordered a gigawatt of solar panels from
\n
\nMAGE SOLAR in Dublin, GA<\/a> or
\n
\nSuniva of Norcross<\/a>?
\nThen Georgia Power could make Georgia and Southern Company could make the southeast
\n
\na net exporter of the energy from solar<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/a>
\nAnd we don’t have to wait on hidebound 20th century utilities.
\nOur own Industrial Authority could issue
\n
\ngreen bonds for rooftop solar<\/a>.
\nOur own school districts could
\n
\nissue bonds for rooftop solar electricity bill savings<\/a>
\nlike
\nDublin, GA<\/a> already did.
\nOakland, CA schools just did that, and expects
\n
\n45% savings<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n -jsq<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How to get Georgia Power and Southern Company off of nuclear and onto offshore wind and onshore solar power: stop approving Construction Work in Progress (CWIP) rate hikes for nukes that are already a billion dollars over budget and more than a year late. So far Mississippi is doing better about this than Georgia, by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[216,14,18,1105,104,22,23,24,178],"tags":[8753,8704,8701,8708,171,8702,8815,12,7,8737,6327,107,8712,8713,8714,108,6,8749,3292,8716],"class_list":["post-7257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coal","category-economy","category-georgia-power","category-lcboe","category-nuclear","category-politics","category-renewable-energy","category-solar","category-vlcia","tag-coal","tag-economy","tag-georgia","tag-georgia-power","tag-kemper-coal","tag-lake","tag-lcboe","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-nuclear","tag-plant-ratcliffe","tag-plant-vogtle","tag-politics","tag-renewable-energy","tag-solar","tag-southern-company","tag-valdosta","tag-vlcia","tag-warren-buffett","tag-wind"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7257","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=7257"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7259,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7257\/revisions\/7259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}