On the LAKE Front

Want to finance solar? Call GA Sen. Jack Murphy today about SB 51

A Georgia Senate committee needs to take it up a bill that would greatly ease financing solar power for your housetop or business roof. Sen. Jack Murphy is the chair, and you can contact him today.

GA SB 51, The Georgia Cogeneration and Distributed Generation Act, was read to the Senate 16 January 2013 and referred to the Committee on Regulated Industries and Utilities. Here's contact information for the Chair of that Committee:

Renewable energy much needed in Georgia —John S. Quarterman

My op-ed in the VDT today; I've added links, plus some more after the op-ed.

Finally! Kewaunee, Calvert Cliffs, and now Crystal River permanently closing say it's time for Georgia to stop wasting money on Southern Company's already over-budget and increasingly-late nukes and get on with solar power and wind off the coast: for jobs, for energy independence, and for clean air and plenty of clean water.

February 2013:

Duke Energy is closing the Crystal River nuclear reactor (Tampa Bay Times, 6 Feb 2013), 160 miles south of us, because nobody wants to pay to fix it: between "$1.5 billion and $3.4 billion, plus what it costs to buy power to replace what Crystal River would have produced while it is being repaired" [Charlotte Business Journal, 11 Jan 2013].

November 2012:

NRC terminated Maryland's Calvert Cliffs 3 (NRC 1 Nov 2012) after Constellation Energy dropped out because the cost "is too high and creates too much risk for Constellation" [Bloomberg 10 Oct 2010].

Return of water misinformation by Forrest H. Williams in the VDT

Seen today on the WACE facebook page is an image of an op-ed in the VDT, and alongside it I include here Michael Noll's initial comments, plus a few links.

There is good reason why Stephen Hawkins once said "the greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." When entities like Fox News can claim that "solar won't work in America because it's not as sunny as Germany", we shouldn't be surprised by the results of such "educational" efforts. The fact is that we have a number of clean and renewable forms of energy (e.g. wind, solar, geothermal) that already work. Just go to Spain, Germany, Denmark, Iceland, or simply stay in the US and visit places like from New Jersey and New York to California and Arizona. Combine these pieces of a larger energy puzzle with meaningful initiatives of energy conservation and energy efficiency, and we find a way out of our current predicament (i.e. continuing dependence on finite and dirty sources of energy), while saving money (see solar vs. nuclear), preserving our natural resources (e.g. water, forests), and providing clean, healthy and safe environments to live in (e.g. wind and solar do not produce radioactive waste, pollute our air and groundwater).

The guest columnist appearing above is the same individual who thought

HB 267 Financing costs; construction of nuclear generating plant

As promised, a bipartisan bill was filed Thursday to stop Georgia Power from charging for nuclear cost overruns on Plant Vogtle; this could free up some financing for Georgia to move ahead on solar and wind power.

2013-2014 Regular Session - HB 267 Financing costs; construction of nuclear generating plant; change calculation that utility can recover from customers,

A BILL to be entitled an Act to amend Code Section 46-2-25 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, relating to the procedure for changing any rate, charge, classification, or service and the recovery of financing costs, so as to change the calculation used under certain circumstances to determine the costs of financing associated with the construction of a nuclear generating plant that a utility may recover from its customers; to provide for related matters; to provide an effective date; to repeal conflicting laws; and for other purposes.

The bill would add this text to Georgia Code:

...provided, however, that in the event the amounts recorded in the utility's construction work in progress accounts plus the amount of all financing costs accrued on any construction work in progress accounts exceeds the costs approved by the commission in the original certificate of the nuclear generating plant granted under Code Section 46-3A-5, the cost of equity portion of the financing costs shall be calculated using a rate no higher than the utility's actual cost of debt.

Let's see what Georgia Power does to fight this one. So far, it's

Duke Energy is closing Crystal River nuclear reactor

Finally! The reactor only 160 miles from here that nobody wanted to pay to fix is closing for good: Duke is closing Crystal River. After Kewaunee and Crystal River closing, which one is next? San Onofre? The never-opened Vogtle 3 and 4?

Ivan Penn wrote for Tampa Bay Times today, Duke Energy announces closing of Crystal River nuclear power plant,

Duke Energy announced early Tuesday it will permanently close the Crystal River nuclear plant that has been shut down since late 2009.

The company said it is reviewing alternatives, including building a new natural gas plant, to replace the power produced by the nuclear facility.

Duke's four coal-fired plants will remain in service at the same Citrus County complex where the nuclear plant, known as CR3, is located.

How about they build offshore wind farms and solar farms instead, like TEPCO is doing near Fukushima? Those can be built on time and on budget, use no fuel, and cause no pollution. And how about rooftop solar for jobs and energy independence?

There's more in the article, including this:

Denmark beats Georgia Power's 20 year plan

As anticipated, Georgia Power released that 20-year energy plan Thursday, because they have file one every three years with the PSC. It includes far less solar power than tiny little far-north-of-here Denmark is busily deploying.

The good news: Georgia Power is closing a bunch of coal plants. And this plan makes a nod towards "demand response programs, energy efficiency programs, pricing tariffs and other activities".

The bad news: they're replacing those coal plants with natural gas, and of course "two new state-of-the-art nuclear facilities at Plant Vogtle"; you know, the two Georgia Power has been charging customers for since 2009 while they deliver no electricity. Georgia Power can't even seem to deliver the reactor containment vessels.

But what about renewable energy?

NRC Power Reactor Status Reports Graphed

Do you know how many outages nuclear reactors near here have had? Probably not, because that's usually not in the news, and you have to dig into day by day NRC reactor status reports to find out. It turns out nuclear power is 0/7 instead of 24/7 on many a day.

Looking at all nine nuclear reactors within 200 miles of here, the graph drips downtime like tears.

The available data on NRC's website and graphed here goes back to 31 March 2006, through 29 January 2013. Let's look at each of our closest reactors one by one. Hatch 1 on the Altamaha River, in addition to its recent 40% power on 21 January and 87% on 5 January, has had quite a few outages:

Power source growth rates like compound interest

What if instead of projecting percentages, we project gigawatts from FERC's December 2012 Installed Operating Generating Capacity table? Solar and wind still win in less than a decade.

Ignore the fastest-growing curve for a moment; I added that. All the other curves start with the December 2012 gigawatts for each power source in the FERC table, and an annual compound growth rate computed by comparing that installed operating capacity to the capacity added in 2012 for that power source. That compound annual growth rate for solar is 60.9% and for wind is 22.8%. Nothing else comes close.

Solar passes coal in about 8 years, wind in about 9, and natural gas in about

Georgia Power to announce 20-year plan Thursday

What will Georgia Power announce for a 20 year energy plan Thursday? Will they (1) just double down on their rate-hike boondoggles for nuclear and gas, or (2) they could flip like Austin Energy in 2003 and Cobb EMC in 2012 and suddenly go solar? The wording here looks like it's going to be the former. That they even feel compelled to announce some sort of formal plan instead of just shovelling disinformation out another 50 years indicates they're feeling the pressure to change direction to real sustainable energy: wind and solar power.

Matt Shedd wrote for WUGATV today, Georgia Power To Release Energy Plan,

Georgia Power is set to release a 20-year energy plan on Thursday which will outline a way for the company and the state to be less reliant on coal power. The AJC reports that just 5 years ago, the company's reliance on coal was at 70 percent.

That number has now dropped to 47 percent. These changes are coming in the wake of Georgia Power's parent, the Southern Co., being pushed by environmental rules to rely less on coal. Georgia Power won approval to buy electricity produced by natural gas from its sister company Southern Power, which may be part of the company's future plans.

Thomas A. Fanning, CEO of Georgia Power's parent The Southern Company (SO), has been touting 70% to 35% reduction in coal since at least May 2012 at the SO shareholder meeting. Fanning continues to emphasize nuclear, gas, and "clean coal" instead of real sustainable energy, namely wind and solar power. He also continues to assert electricity demand will increase, while ignoring conservation and efficiency, which for Georgia could remove all need for new energy, enabling solar and wind to shut down more coal and gas plants, as well as nukes.

So, get out the popcorn and take your bets. Will it be (1) or will it be (2)? I'm betting this time it will be (1), but sooner or later it will be (2), and even Georgia Power, and yes, even Southern Company, will stop digging in their heels and get on the solar train to profits, jobs, energy independence, and oh, by the way, clean air and plenty of clean water.

-jsq

GA SB 51, The Georgia Cogeneration and Distributed Generation Act

Georgia Senator Buddy Carter has introduced a Senate bill for the current session of the legislature, SB 51, "The Georgia Cogeneration and Distributed Generation Act of 2001". It attempts to fix Georgia's special solar financing problem, the antique 1973 Territorial Electric Service Act.

Why 2001? Apparently Buddy Carter has been introducing it every year since then. Last year Georgia Power's disinformation campaign nuked it when it was SB 401. Has the legislature gotten tired of Georgia Power and its parent the Southern Company being way late and overbudget on those new nukes? Does the legislature want Georgia citizens to get the savings and job benefits of the fastest growing energy source in the country? Will GaSU help with SB 51, or only with GaSU's attempt to become a solar monopoly utility? You can contact your legislators and tell them what you think. Every one of them who voted for Georgia Power's stealth-tax rate hike for that nuke boondoggle should vote for SB 51 to start getting Georgia on a clean path to jobs and energy independence.

This bill is not perfect: it counts "generator fueled by biomass" as