Tag Archives: Southern Company

Homerville explosion from pipeline starting in Lowndes County 2018-08-17

Gas from a tiny pipeline demolished a business and sent three women to the hospital yesterday with third-degree burns, plus it shut down Homerville, Georgia, for a day.

Hosing down remains of Coffee Corner, Clinch County News
Hosing down remains of Coffee Corner, Clinch County News, photo by Laura Nipper.

First and most detailed with this story is Clinch County News, and it has been carried by the Associated Press all over the U.S. and beyond.

Apparently only WCTV thought to ask about the pipeline, which is owned by Atlanta Gas Light, aka AGL Resources, and since Southern Company bought that in 2016, Southern Company Gas. Unless Southern Company comes back with a different route, the maps say that pipeline starts in Lowndes County, Georgia, on my property.

Here is Noelani Mathews of WCTV reporting about the Sabal Trail pipeline in January 2016, from where that AGL pipeline takes off from the Southern Natural Gas (SONAT) pipeline to Nashville, Georgia, which was broken by Continue reading →

Landowner wins over Sabal Trail in jury trial, jsq on Scott James radio 2018-06-29

The just compensation for property takings required by the Fifth Amendment is not “just” compensation, said Scott James. And a jury of peers of a landowner told Sabal Trail to pay up five times what it offered for an easement for its fracked gas pipeline.

“…nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”
—Fifth Amendment, U.S. Constitution

Scott said this jury award was big news and asked if it was just compensation. I said yes, front page in the Valdosta Daily Times.


VDT front page

And five times is more just than before. But how is a one-time payment Continue reading →

Strom, Inc. LNG export from Sabal Trail, Crystal River, FL via German Glauben Besitz LLC to Latin America

On its website stromsolutions.com since 2014: “Strom, pronounced with a long O (Ström) is the German word for current…. Strom is a proud Florida based corporation that intends to be a strong corporate partner to the State of Florida.” So why German?

LNG World News, 19 May 2015, Strom files for non-FTA export authorization with DOE
Photo: LNG World News, 19 May 2015, Strom files for non-FTA export authorization with DOE.

Strom, Inc. CEO Michael Lokey

The CEO of Strom, Inc. listed on various filings with the Department of Energy (DoE) Office of Fossil Fuels (FE) is Michael Lokey, who his LinkedIn profile went to Clemson University and has been involved in various ventures in the Tampa/St. Petersburg, Florida area Continue reading →

LNG truck on I-75 and I-10 2018-03-26

Seen southbound on I-75: a truck carrying Methane Refrigerated Liquid, highly flammable, evacuate up to 1/2 mile downwind if broken. Wait, wasn’t Sabal Trail supposed to eliminate the need for such trucks?

KAG, 1972, Methane Refrigerated Liquid, Southbound I-75

The truck said Kenan Advantage Group, but I’d bet it was carrying Continue reading →

GA HB 879 coal ash dewatering up for full Senate vote 2018-03-15

A Georgia Senate Committee Chair from the Suwannee River Basin, Tyler Harper of Ocilla, got HB 879 out of his committee and onto the full Senate floor for a vote soon. Please remind your Georgia state Senator to vote for it so we’ll get to know more about when Georgia Power (or anybody else) is dewatering a coal ash pond, planning to shop it to local landfills.

Wes Wolfe, Brunswick News, 15 March 2018, Coal ash notification bill heads to full Senate,

coal ash ponds and coal ash in landfills in Georgia

The coal ash pond dewatering bill authored by state Rep. Jeff Jones received unanimous committee approval Tuesday afternoon, moving the public notification legislation one step closer to law. By making it through the state House of Representatives before the crossover deadline, and now ready for a vote by the full Senate, puts it in a rare group of bills to be so successful this session.

Senate Natural Resources and Environment Committee Chairman Tyler Harper, Continue reading →

Coal ash dewatering bill HB 879 passed 169:3 on crossover day 2018-02-28

On the very last possible day, the Georgia House passed the coal ash dewatering bill, HB 879, 169:3 (with 2 not voting and 6 excused), yesterday, on crossover day (after which bills cannot move from the Georgia House to the Senate).

Thanks to every Georgia House member from the Suwannee River Basin for voting for GA 879: Patty Bentley (District 139), Buddy Harden (148), Ed Rynders (152), Clay Pirkle (155), Dominic LaRiccia (169), Penny Houston (170), Jay Powell (171), Sam Watson (172), John Corbett (174), John LaHood (175), Jason Shaw (176), Dexter Sharper (177), and Jason Spencer (180). Thanks to all the WWALS members who contacted any of them.

Plant-bowen-ash-pond,
Georgia Power Plant Bowen Ash Pond Dewatering Plan, found on GA-EPD Coal Ash Pond Dewatering Plans.

Despite the hard work of the Georgia Water Coalition, HB 880, “Solid waste management; safe disposal of coal ash in municipal and commercial solid waste landfills”, never made it out of Continue reading →

Fluor books huge loses on three failed gas-fired plants, plus two failed nukes

It’s not just GE and Siemens that are “experiencing disruption of unprecedented scope and speed,” power plant builder Fluor finds “The challenges we have experienced over the last two years on gas-fired power projects are inconsistent with the results we have historically achieved.” Maybe you should have bet on sun and wind power, Fluor, Siemens, and GE, instead of fracked methane and nukes.

Fluor and Diablo Canyon nuclear project in California
Photo: Fluor web page on Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant

Copenhaver Construction, Inc., 8 August 2017,

Problems on three gas-fired power plant projects with fixed-price contracts forced Dallas-based Fluor Corp. to book a $124-million charge in 2017’s second quarter.

CEO David. T. Seaton says Continue reading →

Agenda: Solar Rocks for the Equinox –Suwannee Riverkeeper will be speaking

Agenda sent by Chris Mericle, one of the event organizers:

When: Saturday September 23, 2017 9am – 5pm

Where: Rum 138, 270 SW CR 138, Ft. White, FL 32038

Event: facebook

Hosted by: North Florida Working Group, Suwannee-St. Johns Group of Sierra Club Florida

Old-style solar mounts, 2006, Solar on roof
Old-style solar mounts on roof in 2006, by John S. Quarterman.

Solar Rocks for the Equinox Speaker and Music agenda

Continue reading →

GA coal ash committee might consider more safeguards

Georgia Power (and Florida Power & Light and Jacksonville Electric Authority) created the coal ash; they can find ways to dispose of it safely on their own land. And if FPL is shutting down coal plants, how about shutting down its Unit 4 at Plant Scherer, which sends mercury into our Alapaha River. FPL bought into that unit decades ago with the same excuses it’s using for the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline now: shutting down a different generating plant, and alleged (now admitted false) need for more electricity.

Georgia Power coal ash pond at Plant Scherer
The Georgia Power coal ash pond at Plant Scherer, seen here in this undated company photo, will be closed over the next three years. Fabian, Liz – Macon Special to The [Macon] Telegraph

Kristina Torres, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, More safeguards could be considered for coal ash ponds in Georgia, Continue reading →

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 →