Six weeks have passed since Japan was struck by the massive quake and simultaneous tsunami that initiated the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, and the situation is still not under control. Tokyo Electric Power Company has estimated that it will take nine months to completely seal off the radiation coming from the [...]
Not everybody gets the opportunity to watch a crane lift people 100 feet in the air and call it work. I recently had such an opportunity on a trip to Sewanee, Tennessee when two Duck River Electric Membership Corporation employees were hoisted 100 feet in the air to install wind measurement equipment on a communications [...]
A settlement announced today between TVA, the EPA and several states and public interest organizations is a historic step towards ending our reliance on dirty coal and moving the Valley towards a cleaner, brighter energy future. The settlement, announced at this morning’s meeting of TVA’s Board of Directors, settles lawsuits brought more than a decade [...]
After over a month downplaying the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear reactors in Japan, officials finally upgraded the disaster to a level 7 on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale. Previously, the ranking was 5, meaning “accident with wider consequences.” Before now, Chernobyl was the only accident rated 7, which is the highest on the [...]
Place your Bets If you were going to spend (bet) $8 billion on two nuclear reactors, would you invest in a nuclear reactor design with the following history? They were designed in the late 1960s. Their design has never received a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) operating license. Only four reactors of this design were [...]
On Friday, the Tennessee Valley Authority released its final Integrated Resource Plan (IRP): TVA’s Environmental and Energy Future. It marks the culmination of 18 months of analysis, public engagement and stakeholder review to produce a recommended strategy for the agency, but it also leaves several critical decisions for TVA’s Board of Directors. For years, SACE [...]
The long darkness is over! OK, that’s a bit melodramatic but … after many years of very little access to energy efficiency programs, Southeastern households and businesses are finding that their utilities may be offering attractive and comprehensive energy efficiency programs. As recently as 2008, significant energy efficiency programs in the Southeast were limited to [...]
1 MW solar farm in Georgia installed by ESA Renewables Renewable energy continues its expansion in the Southeast with the recent unveiling of two 1-megawatt solar farms in Tennessee and Georgia. Each is the largest solar energy project in the history of its state, but more importantly, these facilities continue the recent trend of economic [...]
Stion’s thin-film solar panels will be manufactured at a new facility in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Solar energy is fast becoming an economic driver in a location that may surprise some people: the Southeast. The most recent developments include two thin film solar cell manufacturing facilities to be located in Mississippi and South Carolina, the beginning of construction [...]
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) issued a January 6, 2011 release that uses a recent study by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to highlight TVA’s successful reductions of dangerous air pollutants. The fact that TVA has reduced its air pollution is, of course, good news. It means that people and the environment in the Southeast are [...]
