\r\n\r\n
<\/a>\r\nAtlanta-based Southern Co. has agreed to produce a comprehensive\r\nreport on its current renewable energy projects and plans for future\r\ndevelopment of renewables, an environmental organization reported\r\nThursday.\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\n\r\nThe company’s decision prompted Oakland, Calif.-based nonprofit As\r\nYou Sow to withdraw a shareholder resolution asking Southern to\r\nconsider President Barack Obama’s goal of reducing carbon emissions\r\nby 80 percent by 2050, the group said in a news release.\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\n\r\n
<\/a>\r\n“To achieve that goal, utilities need to immediately shift\r\naway from coal toward distributed and renewable energy,” said\r\n\r\nAmelia Timbers, energy program manager<\/a> for\r\n\r\nAs You Sow<\/a>. “The\r\nagreement with Southern shows that a shift in the trajectory of the\r\nelectric utility industry toward a healthy, low-carbon fuel mix is\r\nunderway.\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\n“In the last earnings call, investors wanted to know\r\nSouthern’s plans for solar. Now, they will have that data.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
\r\nSo, SO CEO Tom Fanning,\r\nare you tired of\r\nhaving SO downgraded due to lack of renewables<\/a>?\r\nIs it time to\r\nshow us that tiger team report<\/a>?\r\n
It’s not just coal, it’s also fracked methane that’s part of the problem,\r\naccording to the As You Sow PR of yesterday,\r\n\r\nSouthern Company Agrees to Report on Its Actions to Capture Value from Renewable Energy Investments:\r\n
\r\nShareholder Resolution Seeking Disclosure of Climate-Related Risks is Withdrawn;
\r\nShift Follows Similar Agreement with FirstEnergy<\/a>,\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
<\/a>\r\n“In an effort to provide the ‘cheapest’ power possible,\r\nSouthern has historically focused on coal,” said Danielle\r\nFugere, As You Sow President and Chief Counsel. “Yet we know\r\nthat coal has enormous hidden costs in terms of public health,\r\necological damage, and disaster management. Southern Company’s\r\nactions to bring more renewable and distributed energy online should\r\nbe a wake-up call to other utilities, public utility commissions,\r\nand politicians that energy policy should favor cleaner, cheaper,\r\nmore innovative sources of energy.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\nAs You Sow has been engaging utilities around greenhouse gas\r\nreductions for over a decade, often focusing on reducing the\r\nfinancial risks related to continued reliance on coal. In addition,\r\nthe Energy program continues to work with oil and gas producers on\r\nmitigating the negative environmental and community impacts of\r\nhydraulic fracturing operations, as well as addressing the risk of\r\nstranded carbon assets.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
\r\nWe bloggers have been\r\n\r\nblogging about all those points<\/a>,\r\nand As You Sow is out there busily getting utilities to at least report about them.\r\nAs we heard three years ago from\r\n\r\nSteve Kalland of NCSC<\/a>,\r\ntransparency is the key to to getting solar power deployed.\r\nGet\r\n\r\nexamples on rooftops or solar farms in every county<\/a>, and \r\n\r\n
<\/a>\r\n\r\nget utilities to report what they’re buying and what they’re using<\/a>.\r\nNorth Carolina did that last through a state law,\r\nbut getting multi-state Southern Company to agree to do it voluntarily\r\nis even better.\r\n
\r\n\r\n
<\/a>\r\nSo, As You Sow, how about taking on FPL about\r\n\r\nthe Sabal Trail methane pipeline<\/a>?\r\n
\r\nAnd VLCIA, how about looking at As You Sow’s \r\nGreen Bonds<\/a> idea?\r\nYou as our local Industrial Authority have the power to issue bonds,\r\nand instead of only doing that to buy land for industrial parks,\r\nyou could issue\r\n\r\ngreen bonds for rooftop solar power<\/a>.\r\n
\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nonprofit As You Sow got mighty Southern Company to agree to report on renewable energy, which is the first step towards widespread adoption of solar power. How about taking on FPL next, about that Sabal Trail methane pipeline? And that green bond idea, how about our Industrial Authority take that up? Dave Williams wrote for […]","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":[18,6687,22,23,24,36],"tags":[7544,1763,8701,8708,8702,12,7,3323,6076,8712,8713,5232,6597,7543,8714,108,6,8716],"class_list":["post-8262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-georgia-power","category-pipeline-2","category-politics","category-renewable-energy","category-solar","category-wind","tag-as-you-sow","tag-fpl","tag-georgia","tag-georgia-power","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-nc-rets","tag-pipeline","tag-politics","tag-renewable-energy","tag-reporting","tag-sabal-trail-transmission","tag-shareholder-resolution","tag-solar","tag-southern-company","tag-valdosta","tag-wind"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-29g","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8262","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=8262"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8262\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8265,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8262\/revisions\/8265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}