Tag Archives: Georgia Power

The handwriting on the wall for Plant Vogtle: electric cars and South Carolina cancels its nuclear project –WWALS to GA-PSC

Sent in PDF via email today.

August 2, 2017

To: Georgia Public Service Commission
244 Washington Street, SW
Atlanta, GA 30334-9052

gapsc@psc.state.ga.us

Re: Electric cars and solar power are here now; South Carolina cancels its nuclear project

Dear Public Service Commissioners and Staff,

Since my letter of July 23, 2017, asking you to stop cost overruns for Plant Vogtle and to require Georgia Power again to buy more solar power,1 there have been major developments that further indicate the desirability of these actions.

Tesla is now shipping its Model 3, which many consider the Model T of the electric car industry, affordable not just to executives, but to the masses. New York City changed in thirteen years from all but one horse-drawn carriages to all but one automobiles in its Easter Parade: 1900 to 1913,2 and not much longer for the rest of the country, after the Ford Model T shipped in 1908.

We’re well past 1900 in the electric vehicle revolution, and that is a rapidly growing market for solar panels on business and house roofs.

In The Hill yesterday:3

South Carolina Electric & Gas Co. (SCE&G) and state-run Santee Cooper both said Monday they would suspend their plan to build two nuclear reactors at the V.C. Summer power plant northwest of Columbia.

The companies cited Continue reading →

Utilities have Opportunity to lead in solar power –Suwannee Riverkeeper in VDT 2017-08-02

They ran the op-ed last week online, and today the Valdosta Daily Times (VDT) put it on top of page 5A:

Point of View, page 5A, VDT

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!

Georgia Power has opportunities to lead in solar power –Suwannee Riverkeeper in VDT 2017-07-28

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.”

We dont your coal ash in any landfill in the Suwannee River Basin --Suwannee Riverkeeper

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 →

Videos: Coal Plant Public Hearing in Albany, GA 2017-05-04

You can still comment by tomorrow, Monday, May 8, 2017 on Georgia Power’s NIMBY plan for the coal ash it generated, to send it away from Plant Mitchell to local landfills, maybe yours.

Here are WWALS videos of the GA-EPD public hearing Thursday May 4, 2017 in Albany, GA, which we attended at the invitation of our neighbor Flint Riverkeeper Gordon Rogers, who said at the hearing he is lawyered up, and his attorney Chris Bowers of SELC also spoke.

Comment

You don’t have to hire an attorney; you can send in written comments by tomorrow, May 8, 2017, according to the the GA-EPD announcement of March 31, 2017: Continue reading →

Coal Plant Public Hearing in Albany, GA 2017-05-04

Our neighbor Flint Riverkeeper Gordon Rogers requests people to come to Albany, GA for a coal ash public hearing. If you can’t go, please send in comments.

When: 7PM, Thursday, May 4, 2017

Where: Albany Technical College
Kirkland Conference Center
1704 S. Slappey Blvd.
Albany, GA 31701

What: Public Hearing about draft
National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit
for Georgia Power Company’s Plant Mitchell.

Why: It’s about coal ash.


Plant Mitchell (Georgia Power Co.) near Albany, GA 7/14/94. Photo courtesy of USGS. T.W. Hale, in Pamela P. Holliday, Sherpa Guides, unknown date, The Albany Levee: Trying to Tame the Flint.

Georgia Power proposed Continue reading →

Coal ash protection legislation pending in Georgia legislature

The Georgia Water Coalition (of which WWALS is a partner) notes the city of Brunswick, Georgia passed a resolution agaionst coal ash 21 September 2016, and legislation is about to appear in the Georgia House of Representatives. There is already TVA and JEA coal ash in the Pecan Row Landfill in Lowndes County, just outside Valdosta, and in WWALS watersheds other landfills likely to be targetted are in Cook, Tift, Atkinson, Ben Hill, and Crisp Counties (see GWC map), all upstream of the Withlacoochee or Alapaha Rivers, and all upstream of the Suwannee River, all above the Floridan Aquifer from which we all drink. We don’t want the utility company coal ash problem exported to our landfills. The companies that produced this toxic pollutant should be responsible for disposing of it safely at their expense without foisting it on the rest of us.

Landfills Map
Coal Ash in Your District — Ash Ponds & Municipal Solid Waste, Published by the GA Water Coalition
See also the GWC position on coal ash.

WWALS recommends all Georgia legislators, especially those in WWALS watersheds, join in to prevent further coal ash contamination. See as an example the PR below by Rep. Jeff Jones of Brunswick, which concludes: Continue reading →

Georgia legislature overwhelmingly rejects river easements for Sabal “Sinkhole” Trail fracked methane pipeline

Update 2016-03-28: “It’s the most votes I’ve ever gotten on anything.” —Neill Herring of Georgia Sierra Club.

Tuesday and today, Georgia’s elected legislators stood up for the people against a fracked methane pipeline invader:

Y’all! We don’t win votes on the House floor every day, and the effort to keep the state easements for the Sabal Trail pipeline was truly a joy to watch. R’s, D’s, lawyers, community folk, everyone pitched in and it “went down in flames” 34-128 — AJC [Atlanta Journal Constitution] reporter’s words, not mine! Congrats to all the Georgia Water Coalition….

That’s how Georgia Sierra Club’s Colleen Kiernan summed up what happened Tuesday to the river drilling easements for Spectra Energy’s fracked gas Sabal “Sinkhole” Trail pipeline. Yes, the same Spectra of the Algonquin Incremental Market (AIM) Project, PennEast, Atlantic Bridge, South Texas Expansion, the West Coast Pipeline in British Columbia, and far too many other unnecessary pipeline invasions throughout North America.

Georgia Water Coalition organized this excellent result, including Continue reading →

Tally of votes smashing Sabal Trail easements in SR 954 2016-03-22

Here’s who voted which way when Sabal Trail lost in a landslide against its easements to drill under our Withlacoochee River and Okapilco Creek and other rivers and creeks in Georgia. SR-954-votes-in-the-House 3.0000000, 0.0000000 Thanks to Bentley, Harden, Houston, Pirkle, Powell, Rynders, Sharper, Shaw, Spencer, and Watson for voting Nay against that pipeline river-drilling boondoggle. And Carter, Corbett, and LaRiccia, well, thanks for listening, I guess.

I’ve added Continue reading →

We all won! Sabal Trail SR 954 easements lost in a landslide at GA House 2016-02-22 2016-03-22

Update 2016-03-22 10:30PM: The vote tally.

As reported by Georgia Sierra Club:

Thank you to everyone who contacted a legislator about SR 954 and their concerns about the Sabal Trail pipeline easements. The house voted down the bill 128-34 this afternoon!!! CONGRATULATIONS!

Thanks to everyone, especially Georgia Water Coalition, Georgia Sierra Club, Flint Riverkeeper, Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, everybody else who helped, and of course all WWALS members and everyone else who called their state reps.

There still more you can do to stop Sabal Trail. See the op-ed blog post of today. Continue reading →

Still possible to keep Sabal Trail out –WWALS in VDT 2016-03-22

Update 2016-02-22: We all won by a landslide in the Georgia House! There’s more to do tomorrow until Sabal Trail is ended for good; see below.

Please call your Georgia state representative and ask them to vote No today on SR 954 that would give Sabal Trail easements to drill under our rivers. Here’s why:

John S. Quarterman, VDT, 2016-03-22, Still possible to keep Sabal Trail out,

WWALS at the proposed Sabal Trail Withlacoochee River crossing just upstream from US 84 After two years going to Sabal Trail open houses and FERC scoping meetings, filing e-comments, guiding them to the river crossings and a legal hearing in Jasper, FERC still tells us customers for Spectra Energy from Houston, Texas, constitute a need that outweighs local property rights, environmental destruction, and hazards to our Withlacoochee and Suwannee rivers and the Floridan Aquifer, and to taxes, life, and limb.

Yet Georgia is the fastest-growing U.S. solar market, while solar Continue reading →