Late on the evening of January 24, the board of directors at Cobb EMC made an unprecedented about-face, and voted to freeze the EMC’s funding for two coal-fired power plants: Plant Washington and Plant Ben Hill. Without their biggest investor, these coal plants are now more on the ropes than ever. A consortium of utility [...]
Not all electricity bills are created equal, and today we’d like to commend a local utility company on providing their customers with an exceptionally detailed one. Volunteer Energy Cooperative (VEC) provides information and advice beyond what the average national utility bill presents. Last November, John Wilson, SACE’s Research Director, shared with you a study about [...]
In Georgia, another coal plant is dead, and murmurs from Cobb EMC indicate that the tide may be turning against construction and pursuit of Plant Washington and its twin coal-fired power plant proposal, Plant Ben Hill. Plant Longleaf, a coal-fired power plant proposed near Blakely, GA, was canceled in December 2011 after millions of dollars and more [...]
Last week EPA released a very comprehensive tool by which any member of the public can now easily see just how much global warming pollution their neighborhood coal plant is emitting. Many of the largest GHG emitters are not surprisingly right here in the Southeast. Below is a reposted blog from National Wildlife Federation’s Kendall [...]
Board of Director elections held Saturday, November 12 at Cobb EMC raised the profile of member dissatisfaction with the Atlanta-area utility co-op’s decision-making and leadership to a new level. New board members swept all four seats in the election by huge margins and will be sworn in at today’s Cobb EMC board meeting (Nov. 22, [...]
This blog was written by SACE intern Jeannie McKinney and Natalie Mims. Our nation has seen an exponential rise in environmental activism and energy problem solving within the last decade, and the Southeast is no exception. Today, community groups are starting to create their own energy and sustainability solutions to local and national environmental problems. [...]
A fascinating new study from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy takes a look at what’s on the bills that electric utilities send to their customers. OK, you have got to be an energy geek to appreciate this kind of insight, but here are two observations. ACEEE’s report, “The State of the Utility Bill,” [...]
According to a new study from Citizens for Tax Justice, Duke Energy led five other Southeastern utilities in avoiding federal corporate income taxes. Compared to the statutory 35% corporate tax rate, Southeastern utilities paid about 10.5% of pre-tax profits in federal taxes during the 2008-10 time period. Duke’s effective tax rate of -3.9% (that is, [...]
Senator Bob Corker recently held a forum at UT Chattanooga’s campus to discuss the state’s electricity issues and what that means for job creation in this area. Unfortunately, the roundtable was more of a half-circle as it did not include a single representative from the state’s multi-billion dollar (and growing) renewable energy and energy efficiency [...]
This blog was written by SACE intern Jeannie McKinney and Natalie Mims. Finding best practices in utility-led energy efficiency programs usually means looking beyond our region. Sadly, most of the leading programs are developed and demonstrated by peer utilities in other regions of the U.S. It has been particularly distressing to see that the great [...]