Tag Archives: Georgia Power

Forest Service rejects path for Atlantic Coast Pipeline

If I’m not mistaken, this is the same pipeline Spectra Energy pulled out of bidding on back in August 2014, after numerous local resolutions against. Now it’s hit another big snag. And this also affects Southern Company and solar power: in a good way.

Aaron Isherwood and Nicholas Jimenez, Sierra Club, 6 January 2016, Forest Service Rejects Destructive Path for “Atlantic Coast Pipeline”,

A few days ago, the Forest Service rejected a destructive pathway Dominion Energy had proposed for the $5 billion “Atlantic Coast Pipeline” the company wants to build to carry natural gas from fracking in the Marcellus shale field in northern West Virginia to power plants along the coast of Virginia and North Carolina. This is great news for our National Forests, our ground water, and the climate.

Because the pipeline would have cleared a swath through two national forests (the George Washington and Monongahela), Dominion needed sign-off from the Forest Service. After reviewing the route, the Forest Service determined the environmental destruction the pipeline would cause was unacceptable and rejected the proposal in a January 19 letter

Southern Company (NYSE:SO, and parent of Georgia Power) is in the process of buying Continue reading Forest Service rejects path for Atlantic Coast Pipeline

OSFR v. FPL: head to head in the Gainesville Sun

Evidently Spectra’s Andrea Grover was too obviously failing to convince people to stop worrying and love the Sabal Trail pipeline, because FPL President and CEO Eric Silagy has taken up the mighty megaphone of methane talking points. And the Gainesville Sun ran him on the same page as Merrillee Malwitz-Jipson and Jim Tatum of Our Santa Fe River, today, 18 August 2014. Here are the links and a few excerpts. Read ’em for yourselves!

Merrillee Malwitz-Jipson and Jim Tatum, Pipeline poses multiple problems,

Again, we must point out that Florida Power & Light just recently estimated that in 10 years the demand for power will increase approximately 13 percent, but the Sabal Trail’s new pipeline would have an increase of 33 percent delivery capability. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency filed a report with Federal Energy Regulatory Commission saying that the recently completed (2011) Southeast Supply Header System was designed as an “alternative natural-gas source during hurricane-related disruptions in the Gulf of Mexico.”

That’s actually an underestimate Continue reading OSFR v. FPL: head to head in the Gainesville Sun

Climate Rally and EPA hearings Tuesday and Wednesday in Atlanta

EPA is holding public hearings on its proposed Clean Power Plan next week, 29-30 July 2014, in Atlanta. Maybe you want to mention shifting from coal to “natural” gas (fracked methane) actually may make matters worse here, with proposed pipelines like the hazardous 36-inch monsters Sabal Trail through south Georgia and Renaissance through north Georgia, on environmentally damaging hundred-foot rights of way through our fields, forests, wetlands, and under our rivers. so EPA needs to go further. You can also comment online until 16 October 2014 on Docket ID EPA-HQ-OAR-2013-0602. And you can express your opinion outside with Georgia Sierra Club at the Atlanta Climate Rally Tuesday at high noon. And remember, mercury in the Alapaha River probably comes from coal Plant Scherer, near Macon, Georgia.

While that proposed carbon rule may help clean up coal plants like Scherer, it says nothing about methane, which EPA says is Continue reading Climate Rally and EPA hearings Tuesday and Wednesday in Atlanta

Sabal Trail solar and wind misinformation

A few weeks ago John Peconom of FERC referred me to Sabal Trail’s comments on solar power; something about all the area you’d have to clear to provide as much energy as that 36-inch pipeline. OK, I’ve looked, and it’s the same kind of disinformation Georgia Power used to spout about you’d need to clear an area the size of Atlanta to power Atlanta with solar power. Nevermind you already have an area that size: it’s called Atlanta! Rooftops, parking lots, streets, etc.: plenty of room. And Sabal Trail’s disinformation completely ignores that solar power (and wind) are growing far faster than methane energy production. If this is FERC’s justification for eminent domain to get fracked gas to Florida, it’s a very flimsy justification indeed. We shouldn’t expect anything more from a company that would profit by that eminent domain. But we should expect more from a tax-funded federal agency that is supposed to represent we the people.

Bear in mind that all new U.S. electric generation in September 2012 came from wind and solar. In October 2013 72.1% of all new U.S. capacity came from solar, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), using data from FERC itself. And FERC doesn’t even count the million solar rooftops that are going in.

In 10.3.3 Non-Gas Energy Alternatives in its Draft Resource Report 10: Alternatives (RR10), Sabal Trail correctly dismisses dirty and expensive coal, oil, and nuclear, and even hydro as major energy sources for flat Florida. However, what’s in there about wind and solar is just plain bogus. Continue reading Sabal Trail solar and wind misinformation