August 30th, 2010 › Clean Energy › Guest Post › no comments ›
- E. L. Jacobs, Jr.
As a former chair of the Florida Public Service Commission, I am concerned that recent actions in Tallahassee to dismantle the PSC send the message that the views of the working and bill-paying public count for nothing. Those actions show contempt for balancing the interests of ratepayers with politics.
What other meaning could be derived from the fact that immediately following a vote against record rate-increase requests, four members of the PSC were removed and the public counsel who advocated for ratepayer interests was asked to reapply for his position?
A strong, independent and objective regulatory agency is necessary to oversee utility ratemaking and operation. The Legislature recognized that back in 1978, and it remains true today as utility services expand and grow more complex. Just look at your monthly bills filled with obscure surcharges and rising prices. But the recent actions to subvert the independence of the PSC threaten to undermine the agency’s credibility and erode public trust. At the moment, the balance seems to be shifting away from consumer protection and toward the utilities and big-money politics.
Read more…
Tags: electric rates, Energy Efficiency, ethics, Florida, Legislature, Maryland, public service commission, utility regulation
August 30th, 2010 › Climate Action, Green Economy › Jennifer Rennicks › no comments ›
To many people, it seemed inevitable that 2010 would be The Year we passed The Climate & Energy Bill to overhaul the way we make and consume energy in this country. The stage was set in 2008 when Democrats gained control of both the Congress and the White House and pledged to reduce carbon pollution. Then in 2009, President Obama signed The Recovery Act into law that contained more than $80 billion for clean energy & efficiency programs. Moreover, the U.S. House of Representatives took a critical first step in June 2009 by passing climate legislation in the U.S. Congress for the first time. And now, in 2010, we’ve experienced a year of record snow storms, record heat waves, floods, droughts, a deadly coal mine collapse and the catastrophic Gulf oil disaster. Surely, we all thought, this confluence of factors and actions would provide the momentum needed to effect a paradigm shift in energy policy in the United States.
Incredibly, though, the U.S. Senate adjourned this month without even starting a debate on energy policy in general or an oil spill response in particular. Despite early plans to bring a sweeping climate, energy and oil spill bill to the Senate floor this summer, Senate leaders pulled back and proposed a narrow oil spill response with some efficiency measures on the side before ultimately punting on the issue altogether with promises to “circle back to energy again soon.” Read more…
Tags: climate change, climate policy, Congress, Energy Efficiency, Oil Spill, renewable energy, RES
August 26th, 2010 › Clean Energy, Energy Efficiency, Green Economy › Sam Gomberg › no comments ›
With the release of two new energy efficiency programs, Governor Bredesen and his staff continue working to create a clean, efficient energy future for Tennessee.
The State of Tennessee announced two separate energy efficiency programs this week: one to assist residents in the purchase of energy efficient heating and cooling equipment, and the other to provide low interest financing to Tennessee businesses for energy efficiency and renewable energy retrofits.
On Monday, the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development (ECD) announced the opening of the State Energy Efficient Appliance Rebate Program (SEEARP). The program will provide rebates on a first-come, first-served basis for the purchase of qualifying Energy Star heating and cooling appliances. The program is funded with $5.9 million in Recovery Act dollars.
Monday’s announcement of the appliance rebate program was followed by the announcement on Wednesday of a new $50 million Energy Efficiency Loan Program to help Tennessee companies finance investments in energy efficient technology, energy retrofits and renewable energy systems. The program, administered by Pathway Lending, will offer access to below-market rate loans to finance improvements aimed at reducing energy consumption, lowering overall costs and improving profitability.
These programs will lead to lower energy bills for Tennessee residents and businesses, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and generate economic growth as people are put to work improving Tennessee’s energy efficiency.
Read more…
Tags: Energy Efficiency, incentives, Tennessee, TVA
August 26th, 2010 › Clean Energy, Energy Efficiency, Green Economy, Utilities › Glenn Mauney › no comments ›
By overwhelming bipartisan support, the NC General Assembly passed a tax credit for Combined Heat and Power.
On August 2nd, North Carolina Governor Beverly Perdue signed into law HB 1829, an expanded Combined Heat and Power (CHP) and renewable energy tax credit. For the first time, investments in CHP systems are now eligible for North Carolina’s 35% renewable energy tax credit. This new incentive sponsored by Representative Paul Luebke and supported by the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association will help North Carolina citizens and businesses invest in more efficient and sustainable energy sources while creating jobs and reducing the state’s carbon footprint.
CHP developers who install a system can now receive a tax credit from the state equal to 35% of the cost of the equipment, construction, and installation, up to $2.5 million dollars. The new law makes North Carolina only the third state to offer businesses a CHP tax credit, along with Oregon and South Carolina’s Biomass Resource Credit. The North Carolina General Assembly’s inclusion of CHP in the state’s incentive package will accelerate the adoption of CHP technologies that can produce electricity and heat far more efficiently than traditional sources. Read more…
Tags: biopower, clean tech, Energy Efficiency, geothermal heat pump, green jobs, hydropower, incentives, North Carolina, pollution control, renewable energy, South Carolina, wind
August 24th, 2010 › Clean Energy › Dr. Stephen A. Smith › no comments ›
Last Friday the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) announced a new vision for its energy portfolio at their August Board meeting. (We will be blogging on this in more detail soon.)
TVA CEO Tom Kilgore expressed the hope that TVA will become “one of the nation’s leading providers of low-cost and cleaner energy by 2020″. One of the goals of this new direction is to become the nation’s leader in air quality improvements. A significant first step was TVA’s announcement that it would retire 1,000 MW of old coal plants by 2015.
Today TVA announced further details of its old-coal retirement plans. Within the next four to five years TVA will idle six units at its Widows Creek plant in Stevenson, Alabama, one unit at its Shawnee plant in Paducah, Kentucky and two units at the John Sevier plant in Rogersville, Tennessee. This accounts for 1,000 MW out of TVA’s approximate 15,000 MW of coal-power generation. Read more…
Tags: Alabama, climate change, coal, global warming, Kentucky, pollution control, Tennessee, TVA
August 24th, 2010 › High Risk Energy, coal › Guest Post › no comments ›
SACE is closely following the issue of coal ash waste, and the proposed Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule to finally regulate the toxic by-product of burning coal. To highlight the importance of this issue and the opportunities to get involved, we are re-publishing our national ally 1Sky’s post on coal ash below.
After reading this post, you might notice one major problem. While the EPA announced 7 official public hearings around the country on this proposed rule, not one of these hearings is within reasonable traveling distance to Roane County, Tennessee — home of our nation’s largest and most dramatic coal ash disaster in history. Although SACE and our allies have pushed EPA to hold a local hearing, none is forthcoming. For this reason a group of local organizations has formed the Citizens’ Coal Ash Hearing Committee, which is sponsoring a public hearing on Thursday, September 2, at 5:30pm. The hearing will be held at Roane State Community College, 276 Patton Lane, Harriman, Tennessee 37748 - full details on this flyer. The comments made at this hearing will be officially recorded and submitted to the EPA record.
We strongly encourage you to attend this or another hearing, to tell your friends about these upcoming opportunities, and visit our website for more information on participating in this process. Also, please submit written comments by the deadline: November 19, 2010.
For more information, we encourage you to watch a compelling segment that CBS’ 60 Minutes recently aired on the dangers of coal ash.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.
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Read more…
Tags: coal, coal ash, coal ash regulation, Coal Ash Spill, EPA, global warming, Kentucky, Kingston, North Carolina, pollution control
August 24th, 2010 › Clean Energy › Josh Galperin, Esq. › no comments ›
The following Opinion piece from SACE staff was published in the Chattanooga Times Free Press on Sunday August 22, 2010. (Note that links and images were not published in the original version).
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As you read this, there is a good chance that your air quality is considered “unhealthy” because of ground-level ozone pollution. In 2008, the year with the most recently available data, Hamilton County experienced 110 days during which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Air Quality Index listed a health risk for at least one segment of the population. These risks include reduced lung function, inflammation and damage to airways, increased risk of asthma attacks, increased susceptibility to respiratory infections and aggravation of chronic lung diseases. Read more…
Tags: air quality, Chattanooga, Clean Air Act, ground-level ozone, NAAQS, op-ed
August 12th, 2010 › Clean Energy › Dr. Stephen A. Smith › 2 comments ›
Comments from Dr. Stephen A. Smith, Executive Director, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, August 12, 2010 at EETN’s Ribbon Cutting for Tennessee’s largest solar site.
First let me thank Robbie and Harvey and their team at EETN for seeing this project through and allowing myself and my SACE team to be a part of it. It is indeed a bright and sunny day in East Tennessee and a bright and sunny day for clean energy. Before I begin my remarks I want to give a shout out to someone in the crowd here who has played a key role in this day: Gil Melear-Hough, who worked for me for 10 years and is now working in Oak Ridge with RSI, for his tireless advocacy for solar in east Tennessee and close collaboration with the City to help make Knoxville become recognized as a solar city.
I was asked to share some thoughts on why solar is not just an environmental thing anymore. First let me reiterate why it is an environmental thing: It is clean energy that is produced without causing mountaintop removal coal mining. It does not add to our ground level ozone, acid rain, fine particulate, or regional haze air pollution; does not cause massive spells of toxic coal ash in our rivers, nor lead to drilling or spilling or leaking oil and exploding gas pipelines; will not harbor long-lived deadly radioactive waste, excessive thermal pollution in our rivers or nuclear weapons proliferating terrorist targets - and as we swelter in a worldwide record-setting hot summer it does not emit climate destabilizing global warming pollution. Of course, all energy sources have their drawbacks; some just have significantly more than others. I say this not to be glib but to clearly point out that how we produce and consume energy in this country does have very serious consequences.
Solar has many clear advantages and it is moving out of just the environmental realm into the realm of serious business for business. Our great state of Tennessee, thanks to our Governor and his energy and economic development team, is well down the road to becoming a major solar manufacturing hub, with in excess of $3 billion dollars - yes billion with a “B” - in economic development over the past 24 months. SHARP, the makers of the panels we see here today and the ones I have on my home, has tripled its solar production capacity at its Memphis facility, and we are seeing the Tennessee solar installer community gaining in strength and experience. All of this is good for business in Tennessee and is good for quality jobs in Tennessee.
While today is an important milestone, the first MW solar station, it is just a point in time. We already know that this site will be leap-frogged by a larger site under development in West Tennessee. We know that TVA is struggling to keep up with the demand for solar systems being deployed and we know that if you poll the people and ask what they want, they overwhelming say they want clean energy with solar power being at the top of the list.
So I’m bullish on this technology, one because I know it works. I happily watch my electric meter run backwards the majority of the time at my house when the sun shines; two because I know that the cost curve trends for this technology continue to come down. Last year we saw a 40% drop in panel manufacturing cost and a 10-20% reduction in installed system cost, yes solar is still more “expensive” than traditional dirty energy, but only because tradition energy continues to rely on society to carry the burden of “externalized cost of production.” But that is changing. More importantly solar is already hitting “grid parity” in some U.S. markets now and I expect to see “solar grid parity” in the current planning horizon for TVA and its power distributors. Three: as a father of three boys and two grandsons, I know solar is the right thing to do. Because in a global warming world of more than 6 billion people, all who want the same standard of living we take for granted, I know we better figure out how to produce and consume our energy with a lighter footprint that is safe and clean, that tries to work with the natural world instead of against it.
Just remember this simple but compelling fact: Every morning the sun comes up and bathes our planet with more energy in one hour (one hour!) than all the energy humans will consume in a year. We need to unleash the innovation to harness this gift.
This site is an important step along that path. I ask all of you to commit yourself to helping this smart, clean and safe technology continue to grow and help overcome the barriers so it can power our world safely, cleanly and cost efficiently. It is the right thing to do!
Tags: clean tech, renewable energy, solar, TVA
August 11th, 2010 › Clean Energy › Sam Gomberg › 2 comments ›
Political posturing and back-door procedures are keeping TVA Board appointments from being confirmed by the Senate.
Nearly a year after President Obama nominated four people to fill vacant seats on TVA’s Board of Directors, and 6 months after the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works unanimously approved the nominations, it seems backdoor politics and partisan bickering are keeping the Board nominees from final confirmation by the Senate.
We see no reason for confirmation of these appointees to be controversial. All are well qualified and each testified to the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works about their commitment to the people of the Valley and their desire to move TVA towards a leadership position among the Southeastern utilities. Unfortunately, dysfunctional politics, having nothing to do with the qualifications of the nominees, is stalling final confirmation by the full Senate.
The irony is that when the TVA Act was amended in 2005 to change the Board from 3 full-time members to 9 part-time members, the primary justification was to remove the politics that had permeated the Board and its appointments for several years. Apparently, the current Senate didn’t get the message. Read more…
Tags: Alabama, coal, Energy Efficiency, Mississippi, Nuclear, Tennessee, TVA
August 9th, 2010 › Clean Energy, Climate Action › Guest Post › 4 comments ›
We’re Hot as Hell and We’re Not Going to Take It Any More
Three Steps to Establish a Politics of Global Warming
This blog posting features an article by 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben that has been posted everywhere from TomDispatch.com to Grist.org to the L.A. Times. This provocative piece shows us how to change the dynamics of the climate debate in our country. These words are flying around the internet! Please share this with anyone who is losing faith–and everyone who is wondering how to get to work on the greatest challenge humanity now faces. Bill says, “The time has come to get mad, and then to get busy.”
By Bill McKibben (cross-posted by 350.org 5-Aug-10 from TomDispatch.com) — re-posted here by SACE with permission from 350.org.
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Bill McKibben in Times Square
Try to fit these facts together:
• According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the planet has just come through the warmest decade, the warmest 12 months, the warmest six months, and the warmest April, May, and June on record.
• A “staggering” new study from Canadian researchers has shown that warmer seawater has reduced phytoplankton, the base of the marine food chain, by 40% since 1950.
• Nine nations have so far set their all-time temperature records in 2010, including Russia (111 degrees), Niger (118), Sudan (121), Saudi Arabia and Iraq (126 apiece), and Pakistan, which also set the new all-time Asia record in May: a hair under 130 degrees. I can turn my oven to 130 degrees.
• And then, in late July, the U.S. Senate decided to do exactly nothing about climate change. They didn’t do less than they could have — they did nothing, preserving a perfect two-decade bipartisan record of no action. Senate majority leader Harry Reid decided not even to schedule a vote on legislation that would have capped carbon emissions.
Read more…
Tags: 350.org, 350ppm, Barack Obama, Bill McKibben, cap-and-trade, carbon cap, Climate & Energy, climate bill, climate policy, global warming, grassroots activism, Harry Reid, heat wave, lobbying, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Obama administration, ocean acidification, oceans, Politics, temperature, Thomas Friedman, US Senate
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