They ran the op-ed last week online, and today the Valdosta Daily Times (VDT) put it on top of page 5A:
This newspaper op-ed has already resulted in a call about a water issue.
-jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®
You can join this fun and work by becoming a WWALS member today!
Op-ed in the Valdosta Daily Times today:
Thanks, VDT, for your Sunday solar story and editorial!
Your editorial’s “buyer beware” would better be directed towards the electric utilities, which set up the price mismatch that caused the problem for the customer in your story. The story says, citing John Kraft of Georgia Power, “The utility company offers to pay the producer only as much as it costs to produce solar power. If a utility company can produce solar energy at a solar farm for 5 cents per unit, it isn’t going to pay a residential producer a higher rate for energy it doesn’t need.”
If Georgia Power does not need new energy, why is it building two new nuclear units at Plant Vogtle and charging its customers in advance every month? Four years ago Google already bought more sun and wind power than that nuclear boondoggle would produce if it’s ever finished, and for less than the Plant Vogtle cost overruns. Those cost overruns keep going up, and the cost of solar panels keeps going down.
The story says Kraft asks people why they want solar power. Maybe to Continue reading
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Hahira, Georgia, July 27, 2017 — On Monday, WWALS Watershed Coalition asked the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) to take Southern Company (SO) CEO Tom Fanning up on his suggestion that the PSC could affect the SO board’s August self-imposed deadline about the two new nuclear units at Plant Vogtle: to go ahead despite the bankruptcy of Toshiba, or not. WWALS also asked the PSC, like it did four years ago, to require Georgia Power to buy more solar power.
Suwannee Riverkeeper John S. Quarterman wrote to Georgia PSC: “The Mississippi Public Service Commission in June refused Continue reading
Let me fix some typos in Sabal Trail’s PR of yesterday, Sabal Trail Transmission Project Placed In-Service: New Pipeline System Increases the Reliability and Diversity of the Southeast U.S. Natural Gas Infrastructure.
Corrected headline: Sabal Trail starts stagecoach line in an electric car world.
Apologies to the 1877 Omaha Herald and
True West.
Adding a third natural gas pipeline merely makes Florida even more than 60% dependant on natural gas, as Sierra Club Alabama, Georgia, and Florida pointed out three years ago. The people of Florida voted for solar power twice last year. Yet Sabal Trail is wasting $3 or $4 billion on Continue reading
Update 2017-07-28: See also VDT op-ed and letter to GA-PSC.
Five years ago I asked Southern Company (SO) CEO Tom Fanning what was his exit plan when the Big Bets on Kemper Coal in Mississippi and the two new Plant Vogtle nuclear units on the Savannah River go bad. This Wednesday SO stopped using coal at Kemper Coal after the MS PSC refused to authorize further cost overruns. Thursday GA PSC staff said Plant Vogtle is no longer economical. It is time for GA PSC to do for Plant Vogtle what MS PSC did for Kemper Coal.
As Suwannee Riverkeeper at this year’s meeting in May, I told Fanning we don’t want SO’s coal ash in any landfill on any river in the Suwannee River Basin; I asked him for solar panels at Moody Air Force Base to shut down a natural gas pipeline; and I questioned SO’s acquisition of Pivotal LNG with its deal to ship liquid natural gas in bomb trucks down I-75 and I-10 to Jacksonville, Florida.
I reminded our genial host of my question five years ago, with the handwriting already on the wall since the Atlanta Journal-Constitution had then just referred to Plant Vogtle as a financial quagmire. This time I asked Fanning to lead us all to sun and wind power.
In SO’s own video you can see them Continue reading
The fracked methane gas flowing has provided more evidence that there is no need for Sabal Trail. Now more than ever, you can watch that pipeline like a hawk, work on revoking its permits, and help stop FERC from rubberstamping any more boondoggles.
Jamie Wachter, Suwannee Democrat, 27 June 2017 (also Waterkeeper Alliance 28 June 2017, and Valdosta Daily Times page 8A 28 June 2017 but apparently not online), Gas now flowing through Sabal Trail pipeline,
Photo: Beth Gammie for WWALS, Suwannee County, Florida, 14 January 2017
Is this a good use of Florida local and state law enforcement?
Protecting an invading, unnecessary, pipeline from the unarmed public?
The pipeline’s first phase is supposed to provide service to Florida Power & Light to meet the start of its peak cooling season, Grover said.
Note Ms. Grover’s careful phrasing Continue reading
An analyst on a leading stock blog confirms what we’ve been saying for years: there is no need for Sabal Trail’s fracked methane pipeline. Instead, Sabal Trail is taking gas away from FGT and Gulfstream. The article does not mention all those LNG export operations right where this pipeline chain goes. It does get to the heart of what even FPL admits:
“The challenge is natural gas in Florida faces growing competition from residential, commercial and utility scale solar resources as well as power forecasts that are revising lower despite a growing population and customer counts….”
You can help fight Sabal Trail even now that its gas is on, and reform FERC so we don’t get any more pipeline boondoggles.
BTU Analytics, SeekingAlpha, 20 June 2017, Sabal Trail Adding Pipeline Capacity But Not Demand, Continue reading
It’s not over just because the gas is flowing through Sabal Trail. We’ll be watching, and we’re escalating.
Noelani Mathews, WCTV, June 15, 2017, Local environmentalist groups prepare for Sabal Trail Pipeline to go online,
“We’ve always did a lot online and through legal angles and we’re going to continue doing a lot of that,” says John Quarterman, WWALS President. “If we hear about a sink hole or a leak, we’ll be there taking pictures.”
Sabal Trail Transmission spokeswoman Andrea Grover said, Continue reading
There are still many things you can do, from permit violations to FERC reform, after FPL gloated yesterday about starting the gas through Transco, Sabal Trail, and FSC. Pipelines leak, and another pipeline’s go-ahead just got slapped down by a federal court, plus we need to change the whole legal game. Meanwhile, continuing the rocketing rise of solar power in the Sunshine State and everywhere else is the best way to pry the clammy grip of the fossil fuel industry off our political system.
Photo:
Mitch Allen
Susan Salisbury, Palm Beach Post, 14 June 2017, Sabal Trail, Florida SE Connection are now piping fuel to FPL,
“The start of Florida Southeast Connection and Sabal Trail Transmission natural gas pipeline operations is an important milestone for FPL customers and Florida’s economy,” FPL president and CEO Eric Silagy said.
It may indeed be a milestone of the last pipeline ever built into Florida or through Georgia.
It may even be a milestone of Continue reading
Reporting from the event, Jim Tatum, OSFR, 10 June 2017, “From The Ashes” Screening by Suwannee St Johns Sierra Club North Florida Working Group,
The North Florida Working Group of the Suwannee St Johns Sierra Club presented an early screening of the documentary “From the Ashes” at the Live Oak Woman’s Club on June 9, 2017….
Susanna Rudolph, Joy Ezell, and Gretchen Quarterman, panelists; Photo: Jim Tatum, OSFRAfter the showing Deanna Mericle lead a panel composed of Susanna Randolph, Campaign Senior Representative for Beyond Coal, Sierra Club from Orlando, Joy Ezell, active environmentalist and founder of Help Our Polluted Environment (HOPE) from Perry, and Gretchen Quarterman, Board member and treasurer of WWALS Watershed Coalition, Hahira, Georgia.
Follow the link for more pictures and text.
See also Continue reading