This blog was written by SACE intern Jeannie McKinney and Natalie Mims. According to their second quarter report for 2011,*Georgia Power Company (GPC) has only accomplished 9 percent of their annual energy savings goal for the current year. In an effort to help their state “out of the bottom of national and regional comparisons on [...]
A recent article in The Tennessean highlights one emerging reality for energy companies: people are consuming less energy. The excellent long-form piece by reporter Anne Paine, “TVA bets on rising demand: Less electricity use could increase costs” goes into detail about the decisions utilities face with energy use on the decline. Plans for new power [...]
As more details about the Solyndra bankruptcy and governmental support for the now-defunct solar manufacturer emerge, an important question is going to have to be addressed: What now? Renewable energy is wildly popular in the United States. Indeed, a poll completed in 2009 showed that a whopping 92 percent of Americans supported solar energy. Perhaps [...]
Each year, starting in 1989, an annual report titled, “Our Changing Planet” has been produced by the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) and submitted to Congress. The USGCRP also conducts the National Climate Assessment (NCA), which has been previously completed in 2000 and 2009. The assessment serves as a “status report” on the latest [...]
In the past week, more than 20 homes have been built on the National Mall’s West Potomac Park in Washington D.C.. No, they weren’t built by squatters or angry protesters. They were built by university teams from all over the world, including five teams from southeastern states, to compete in the Department of Energy’s Solar [...]
–SACE’s High Risk Energy Choices Organizer, Mandy Hancock, contributed to this blog post. Last month, SACE again participated in the nuclear cost recovery hearings for Progress Energy Florida (PEF) and Florida Power & Light (FPL) at the Florida Public Service Commission (PSC) in Tallahassee. This is the third consecutive year that these Florida utilities have [...]
UPDATE 1: It has been confirmed that the tar balls that washed ashore during Tropical Storm Lee are, in fact, oil from the BP oil spill. UPDATE 2: The Coast Guard Deepwater Horizon Joint Investigation Team has released its final report on the causes of the Gulf oil spill. Some of BP, Transocean and Halliburton’s actions [...]
Congressional supporters of dirty coal are running out of options. The coal-power industry is under pressure to finally clean up its act and efforts to argue that coal power is clean are not convincing. As a result, the coal industry has stooped to threats, claiming, among other things, that compliance with human health and environmental [...]
This week marks the beginning of a federal trial resulting from the 2008 Kingston coal ash disaster. That environmental catastrophe resulted in 5.4 million cubic yards of toxic coal ash being dumped in Roane County, Tennessee, making it the biggest environmental disaster of its kind in history. Now, nearing the third anniversary of the disaster, [...]
Imagine you were head of an agency charged with providing affordable energy, stewarding the environment and supporting economic development and technological innovation. Now imagine that the agency operated a program that fostered the development of 100% clean and renewable energy from emerging technologies, created local jobs and attracted private investments in local communities, and cost [...]
