Public must come first at Florida PSC

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 [...]

Two new Tennessee programs set to help residents and businesses save energy and reduce costs

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 [...]

New Tax Credit for CHP in North Carolina

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 [...]

TVA Announces Old Coal Retirements

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 [...]

Chattanooga Paper Runs Op-Ed on New Proposed Ozone Standards

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 [...]

Comments from Stephen A. Smith at EETNs Ribbon Cutting for Largest Solar Site in TN

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 [...]

Dysfunctional politics continues to stall confirmation of TVA Board nominees

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 [...]

SACE Guest Blog with Bill McKibben

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 [...]

Knoxville Jail Locks Up One of the Largest Solar Hot Water Systems in the Nation

Contributions to this blogpost were made by SACE’s Lauren Steier and Joanna Malcom of FLS Energy.

A huge solar hot water system was recently installed on Knox County’s Detention Center just outside of Knoxville, TN. This solar thermal system consists of 300 flat plate collectors and will provide hot water to more than 1,000 inmates, which [...]

Too little, too late? Congress may fail to move from oil spill to a robust energy bill

After decades of scientific data gathering, years of growing public and business support and more than three months of an unmitigated environmental catastrophe, it is reasonable to expect that citizens and leaders would all support a paradigm shift in U.S. energy policy.
In fact, even before BP’s Gulf oil disaster began, President Obama and Congress promised [...]