Fresh Loaf

The city’s Department of Watershed Management has released its annual Water Quality Report. A cursory glance shows that what’s flowing from your tap is suitable to drink.

From Commissioner Rob Hunter:

“The Water Quality Report continues to show the City’s commitment to clean water,” said Commissioner Rob Hunter. “We are proud of our system and of the employees who work diligently to make sure that we offer drinking water of the exceptional quality that our customers have come to expect.”

The report will be inserted into city water customers’ next bills. To view it before then, click here.

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U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., unveiled a seven-point energy plan Friday that may seem elementary at first, but at least he’s thinking out loud. He and a Democratic colleague say they will work together to develop a formal proposal that they will deliver to the next president.

From the article linked above, the senator’s aims:

• Supporting plug-in electric vehicle development, including “smart metering” by utilities that would allow cheaper rates for overnight battery charging.

• Making solar power cost competitive with fossil fuels, with the promise of solar thermal power plants.

• Making biofuels cost competitive with gasoline, particularly ethanol from cellulosic materials.

• Making more new buildings energy efficient.

• Developing systems to capture and store carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants.

• Developing ways to safely reprocess and store nuclear waste — the “most important breakthrough” needed to support more nuclear plants.

• Continuing research on nuclear fusion.

Each bulletpoint raises numerous questions.

If we replace today’s fuel-efficient fleet with electric vehicles — which Alexander suggests we charge during the night when rates have historically been low — how many power plants are we going to need to provide all that round-the-clock electricity? How will the electricity needed to operate those vehicles be generated?

Making new buildings more energy efficient is considered one of the best ways to reduce your carbon footprint and make the most of what you already have, but how do you make it affordable or enticing for people to do so?

Nuclear power, while it doesn’t contribute to global warming, has plenty of opponents because of its heavy use of water, high cost and potential danger to the environment.

But at least Alexander’s got ideas which could spark a little debate. I’ve yet to see a Georgia lawmaker mention anything along these lines.

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The Rome News-Tribune is reporting that 30 years after Georgia Power’s Plant Bowen started belching out pollutants, one of the nation’s biggest carbon dioxide emitters has installed its first of four scrubbers at the facility.

The device — known as a flue gas desulphurization system — is estimated to remove 95 percent of sulfur dioxide from emissions. Its lone waste product — gypsum — will be sold to an Alabama rock wall company.

The article says that Georgia Power plans on installing 21 scrubbers on six of its coal-fired power plants. Each one will take three years to construct.

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Two nights ago, I spoke with a friend in France who said that while she feels sorry for us Americans and our shock about high gas prices, the collective opinion of Europeans is “welcome to the club.” We’re finally paying the true cost of energy as they always have and — shock! — it’s a lot.

And in metro Atlanta, where decades of inaction on public transit has been almost a badge of honor for shortsighted legislators, people are realizing how woefully underfunded one of the best alternatives is now that they need it the most.

(more…)

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Gather round, all Atlantans, and breathe through a handkerchief for the rest of the day. The Clean Air Campaign has issued a Code Orange Smog Alert — meaning that the air quality in the region today is unhealthy for such sensitive segments of the population as asthmatics, the elderly and people with heart or lung disease. Those groups should limit outdoor exercise or exertion to the early morning hours and late evening.

It’s always about the people. Won’t anyone think of the bees!?! In the meantime, think about using other ways to travel to help improve the region’s air quality. The campaign says that if one person opted not to drive one day a week for every week in the year, he or she would reduce the amount of pollutants emitted into the air by more than 2,080 pounds.

(Graphic courtesy of the Department of Homeland Security)

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Air pollution doesn’t just add to our region’s reputation as a smog-laden Mecca. It might even play a role in why honeybees — vital vectors in how we get our food — are dying off at a dizzying rate.

The Washington Post reports on a study that found the scents flowers emit — which are broken down when they come into contact with smog and ground-level ozone — are now traveling shorter distances. Air pollution, the report says, can eliminate 90 percent of a flower’s aroma, and may be contributing to a phenomenon called “colony collapse disorder” that’s become increasingly worse since 2006.

Our sting-happy friends can’t pick up on the scent, lose a food source and their populations subsequently dwindle. That tosses a wrench in the pollination process.

Metro Atlanta, you may recall, recently ranked 6th on the American Lung Association’s list of most-polluted cities.

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Cost of one ton of Appalachian coal in 2007: $40

Cost of one ton of Appalachian coal in 2008: $90

Percentage of electricity price increase Georgia Power recently requested from the state Public Services Commission: 3

Number of times Georgia Power has requested rate increases during the past five years: 5

Amount Georgia Power parent company, Southern Co., spent on government lobbying in 2007: $14.5 million

Number of new coal plants planned for Georgia: 2 Amount of energy, in megawatts, the two coal power plants can produce: 2,050

Amount of energy, in megawatts, that one wind turbine among many located off the Georgia coast could generate in clean energy: 160

Sources: Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Augusta Chronicle, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, Public Service Commission, Georgia Tech Strategic Energy Institute, OpenSecrets.org

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When Commissioner Angela Speir announced she would seek other opportunities after her term on the Public Service Commission ends and not seek re-election, it sent a sigh of chagrin throughout the public-interest community.

“I think we’re losing a good one when she steps away,” says Bill Bozarth of Common Cause, a nonprofit group that focuses on fairness and accountability in government practices and who recently recognized Speir for her work. “She shows what one who is elected to such a position can do, which is act as a buffer between a regulated body [like a utility] — a sanctioned monopoly, of sorts — and the well being of the state of Georgia.”

Her exit comes at a time when Commissioner Bobby Baker – another respected official on the five-member board – risks losing his seat because a sour-grapes opponent has challenged his residency status in a battle that’s now in the hands of the state Supreme Court. Lauren “Bubba” McDonald, whom Speir trumped in the 2002 election and is considered a champion for the status quo, is the lone candidate for her seat. She’ll endorse McDonald “when the devil puts on his overcoat,” she says. (Oddly enough, McDonald may be trying to separate himself from his “Bubba” past — on the Secretary of State’s online list of qualifying candidates, he’s listed merely as “W. Lauren McDonald.”)

“Some commissioners and some candidates view this job as a part-time job, or a part-time commitment to the people,” Speir says. “It should not be viewed as an opportunity to take advantage of the taxpaying public by not showing up for work, driving a state car and getting your gas paid for when you’re not on state business or traveling to junkets where commissioners are wined and dined, paid for by lobbyists with business before the commission” – referring to the recent reports that Commissioners Stan Wise and H. Doug Everett received trips and perks from the natural-gas lobby.

(more…)

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Woe is Georgia Power.

The energy heavy and subsidiary of Atlanta-based Southern Co. is advocating before the Public Services Commission today and tomorrow that it needs to raise its rates 3 percent because of the skyrocketing cost of natural gas and coal, the state’s predominant fuel burned to generate electricity. Customers would most likely see their bills go up $3 if the hike is approved.

Georgia Power says the rate hike will generate $222 million. Long the cheapest bang-for-the-buck source, coal’s prices have risen sharply, from nearly $40 a ton early last year to $90 a ton in today’s market, thanks to increasing demand from India and China. Two new coal power plants have been proposed for the state of Georgia. The mining and use of coal is also probably one of the stiffest middle fingers you can give to Mother Nature, but that’s another story.

In other news, the sun continues to shine and wind continues to blow.

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The DeKalb County PATH trail between Medlock and Mason Mill Parks that has riled critics and become a hot-button issue — and caused a rift between neighborhood supporters and opponents — is now being spraypainted, evident in the photo of a vandalized silt fence along the planned multi-use trail. Construction of the project was recently halted by the state Environmental Protection Division and is now in limbo land.

For more photos, click here.

(Photo courtesy of the Three Forks Heritage Alliance)

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Energy experts are saying that Georgia’s potential to become a clean-technology leader is best realized in pine ethanol. The state’s abundant arboreal resources, they argue, could give us an alternative to gasoline as well as a revenue stream.

But there’s also wind. Studies conducted by Dr. Sam Shelton of Georgia Tech discovered that breezes off the state’s coast were sufficient enough to generate power. The turbines would be located more than 12 miles from shore and beyond the horizon, far out of eyesight of landowners and beachgoers. The ocean floor is shallow enough and the proposed turbine locations are outside hurricanes’ paths and migration patterns of the endangered right whale. Problems: It costs a lot of coin to run transmission cables along the ocean floor and takes a lot of time to obtain the permits to do so.

Maybe it’ll take raising public awareness to get Georgians to tell the utilities and EMCs to invest in wind power. Maybe this European commercial showcasing how wind feels so damn lonely just blowing in this world, adrift and without a purpose, might convince us to put out the call. (Warning: There is a brief shot of Mr. Wind using his supernatural powers to momentarily lift a woman’s skirt . That sentence I just wrote makes it sound worse than it is.)

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City of Atlanta Councilmember Carla Smith is inviting all who possess old televisions and electronic devices — what are these VCRs of which they speak? — to haul their goods down to Turner Field on April 26 and bid them adieu. As part of its Earth Day celebration, the city will be accepting all things electronic — from keyboards to stereo speakers — from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Last year, the city collected 75,583 pounds of electronic items during the one-day e-waste recycling event. First 100 folks get a Best Buy gift card. Seriously.

That same day from 9 a.m.-noon, City Council member Natalyn Archibong and residents of her district, which includes communities from East Lake to Cabbagetown, will scour the area and look for discarded tires. Since 2002, the annual event has removed more than 6,000 tires from vacant lots, waterways and the roadside. If you’re interested, head to 815 Old Flat Shoals Rd. to participate. Residents who live in the district and wish to dispose of old tires can also do so free of charge at the location.

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