Fresh Loaf

And they’re not even considering the wind potential off Georgia’s coast. From the office of Gov. George Ervin “Sonny” Perdue:

According to a recent Forbes article entitled “America’s Best Places For Alternative Energy,” the abundance of biomass in Georgia’s Bioenergy Corridor ranks third in the nation as a potential source of renewable energy. The article referenced the amount of privately owned forest in Georgia, more than any other state in the country, as a reason for the state’s ranking. Forbes also cited that “roughly 50 million tons of the state’s own timber end up in the state’s wood-products manufacturing plants every year” and the industry “returns nearly half of it in the form of primary mill wood debris.” Only Iowa and North Dakota ranked higher. Rounding out the top five were Mississippi and North Carolina.

“Georgia’s wealth of natural resources combined with our research institutions and a strong business climate create an ideal environment for the development of renewable energy,” said Governor Perdue. “We appreciate Forbes’ recognition of our ability to develop alternative energy sources.”

…

Georgia is at the forefront of the nation’s development of cellulosic ethanol, a non-food feedstock for the production of ethanol from pine and other wood residuals. Range Fuels broke ground on the nation’s first commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol plant in Soperton on November 6, 2007. The facility is expected to be operational in 2009. In addition, the state’s research institutions including the Georgia Institute of Technology, University of Georgia and the Herty Advanced Materials Development Center are providing R&D in support of cellulosic ethanol and other renewable energy alternatives.

Full press release follows after the jump.

(more…)

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After the last Critical Mass ride in which Atlanta cops cracked down on the cyclists for traveling in a pack and disrupting traffic, velocipede enthusiasts will hold a Courteous Mass tonight at 6:30 p.m. Participants are urged to meet at Woodruff Park like before around 6 p.m.

During Courteous Mass, participating cyclists are expected to follow all rules of the road and stop at traffic lights.

From local blogger and rocket scientist Shelbinator, whose video of the police presence generated more than 123,000 views on CNN’s iReport, come the details:

Courteous Mass Bicycle Ride
Friday, July 11
Meet @ 6:00 PM
Woodruff Park
Leave @ 6:30 PM

This ride is different from Critical Mass in that it will follow a planned route and follow state traffic laws. It is intended to demonstrate support for better bike facilities and safer traffic conditions. It is also a great opportunity for less-experienced cyclists to try riding on the streets, as well as being a fun social event. We urge everyone who believes in a balanced transportation policy to join us.

Courteous Mass Tips:

• Ride no more than two abreast on 4-5 lane roads, taking up only the right lane.
• Ride single file on 2-3 lane roads so as not to interfere with traffic flow.
• Please allow faster cyclists ahead of you so they are not stuck behind slower cyclists during single-file stretches.
• Do not pass stopped cars on the right (unless there is a bike lane).
• And as always, be courteous!

There ya go. Be civil, be safe and remember: Roads are made for all people to access destinations — not just people in cars.

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The Public Service Commission sounds like a nonprofit organization that pairs high school students with soup kitchens. In reality, it’s a five-member quasi-judicial state agency that plays a large role in not only how much you pay to keep your living room cool and your lights aglow, but what kind of energy generation a utility uses to make those modern conveniences possible. And at a time when energy prices are soaring and global warming continues to happen, it’s perhaps one of the most important elected offices in the state.

The PSC regulates most electric, telecommunications and natural gas rates in the state. They’re in a tricky spot. On one hand, you can’t put the pinch on customers and for the business. On the other, they can’t choke business. The biggest item on its agenda is an upcoming vote in March to determine whether customers should pay for a proposed expansion to Plant Vogtle, a nuclear plant near Augusta.

The commission has become notorious for being chummy with the utilities they’re supposed to regulate. Campaign contributions from lobbyists and lawyers who argue before them are commonplace. The commission also needs to learn the power of the “no.” Of the last five rate increases that were presented by Georgia Power to the PSC, all were approved. UPDATE: Bill Edge of the PSC chimes in and lets me know “Georgia Power’s proposed increases in 2004 and 2007 were cut by the Commission. In the 2001 rate case, the Commission actually cut Georgia Powers rates already in effect.” One of them was necessary to clean up plants, but man, it’d sure be a shame for those companies to pay for that out of pocket, wouldn’t it? In other words, it’s been business-as-usual.

I posed three questions to Angela Speir, a widely admired commissioner who is opting not to run for reelection, about the PSC’s role in Georgians’ lives and why July 15’s crop of candidates should be scrutinized. Here are her responses, along with a few endorsements for who she’d like to see join the commission. Note she doesn’t endorse Doug Everett, the incumbent with whom she’s served the last six years. (Click here to read CL’s analysis of all July 15 primary races.)Why is it important?

While few people realize it, the decisions of the PSC directly impact every resident of Georgia and every business in Georgia every single day. The Commission is charged with ensuring that Georgians have safe, reliable, and affordable utility service. One of the most important duties of the Commission is setting reasonable rates - for example, how much Georgia Power can charge for electricity and how much Atlanta Gas Light can charge for natural gas distribution. But, the Commission also determines things like whether Georgia should meet its energy needs through renewable energy or nuclear power, whether a natural gas marketer that defrauds consumers will be held accountable, and even whether the corroded leaky gas main down the street gets replaced.

Why should people care about who gets elected to serve on it?

Who you elect will directly impact your wallet! Over the last 5 years, the annual bill for a typical Georgia Power customer has increase from $843 to $1,119, and a majority of the Commissioners approved every penny of that increase. That’s a 34% increase! Some of those increases may have been unavoidable due to rising wholesale energy prices. But, much of it was unnecessary and unfair to consumers.

What should they look for?

Different Commissioners are going to make different decisions. Some will try to make balanced, fair decisions based on the evidence and based on what is best for Georgia. Others, frankly, will make politically motivated decisions based on backroom deals, gifts and campaign contributions. Voters should look for candidates who have honor, ethics and integrity - someone whose idea of public office is that of a dedicated public servant, not someone who looks at what they can get out of the office for personal gain. Looking at how a candidate runs his or her campaign, including who they accept money from, can tell you a lot about what kind of Commissioner they will be – will they enter office beholden only to the people? Or, will they enter office already beholden to utilities, lobbyists, or other special interests. For these reasons, Pam Davidson and Rick Collum have my vote and my support.

(Photo courtesy of the PSC)

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TESTY: Iran test-fires more missiles overnight, although maybe not as many as it claims.

TESTES: Jesse Jackson apologizes for his bizarre comments about Barack Obama caught by a Fox News microphone he didn’t know was on.

CONSERVATION PIECE: The Georgia DNR is working on buying 1,800 acres of land between Pigeon and Lookout mountains in North Georgia.

BRIAN NICHOLS TRIAL: Starts today.

DNA EVIDENCE: Clears JonBenet Ramsey’s parents in her 1996 killing, points to “unexplained third party.”

PEOPLE: Twenty thousand of them moved to Atlanta from 2006 to 2007, putting the city’s population at more than 500,000.

OUT OF THE BAG: A mysterious spotted wildcat was found and detained in Midtown early this morning. UPDATE: It’s an ocelot serval.

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State tax credits for a variety of energy-efficiency improvements and installations on homes and businesses are now available. The eligibility criteria is available for viewing at the Georgia Environmental Facilities Authority’s website.

The perks cap out at $2.5 million each year and will be pro-rated among the applicants. The credits sprang from HB 670, a piece of legislation that Pam Davidson, one of the Republican candidates for the Public Service Comission, helped push through the notoriously un-progressive General Assembly this past session.

Here are some facts from a GEFA press release.

Consistent with Governor Perdue’s commitment to the Conserve Georgia campaign and the Governor’s Energy Challenge, the tax credit creates an income tax credit for a variety of energy efficient and renewable energy technologies including:

• Active solar space heating;

• Solar electric and solar thermal electric;

• Wind;

• Certain bio-electricity facilities (non-residential only);

• Geothermal heat pumps;

• Efficient lighting (non-residential only); and

• Energy efficient buildings (non-residential only).

“The Georgia Clean Energy Property Tax Credit is part of our state’s investment in a clean energy future,” said Chris Clark, executive director of the Georgia Environmental Facilities Authority (GEFA). “This incentive will accelerate Georgians’ adoption of energy efficient technologies and will help them to meet the Governor’s Energy Challenge.”

Most credits are capped at 35 percent of the cost of the property or a certain dollar amount established by the statute. There are different credit limits for residential and non-residential installations. The bill also provides tax credits for wood residuals delivered to qualified renewable biomass facilities. The Georgia Forestry Commission will establish the value of the biomass credits.

A total of $2.5 million in tax credits are available each calendar year from 2008 to 2012. The Department of Revenue will provide quarterly updates about the amount of available credits via its website – www.dor.ga.gov. GEFA will provide annual reports on the energy and economic benefits of the tax credit.

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Atlanta entrusted one of mankind’s most vital resources to a private French company called United Water way back during the glorious days of Mayor Bill Campbell. It didn’t work out too well.

The rabble rousers at the Fulton County Taxpayers Association have been pushing Mayor Shirley Franklin to take a walk down memory lane and reconsider doing business with the company. They say it would save taxpayers $20 million annually.

If ever there were an example of peace of mind being worth paying for, this is it.

Franklin politely told them no:

In the past several weeks I have received a series of letters requesting that the city renew a relationship with United Water, a private French company that ran the City’s water operations in the late 1990’s through 2002. This request first appeared in a mailing from the Fulton County Taxpayers Association. I write now to explain we are not interested in pursuing your recommendation.

Whew. View the organization’s response to Franklin here.

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Two candidates vying for the Public Service Commission’s District 4 seat that represents north Georgia sniped at each other today at the joint Atlanta Press Club/Georgia Public Broadcasting debates and delivered what basically could be amounted to as “Pam loves renewables” and “Bubba loves nukes.” A clear-cut battle between Mother Nature and Radioactive Man.

Bubba McDonald — who’s now going by his given name of Lauren, but he’ll always be Bubba to us — served both on the commission and in the General Assembly and wants to hop back on the agency that regulates the state’s energy sector. His opponent, Pam Davidson, has never held an elected office in her life, but is a former lobbyist and energy consultant who says she makes up for her inexperience with education about the issues.

(more…)

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A little more than one year after filing suit against a coal plant proposed for an impoverished pocket of southwest Georgia, opponents emerged victorious in the case and say the decision alters the legal landscape for one of the chief causes of global warming.

Justine Thompson of GreenLaw, the environmental law firm that fought the power plant, says Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thelma Wyatt Cummings Moore established a precedent this morning when she reversed a ruling by a lower court regarding a permit issued by the state Environmental Protection Division to Dynegy Co., the Houston-based company that planned to build the plant in Early County. Moore’s ruling — the first in the nation — states that the state agency must consider carbon dioxide emissions when it issues air-quality permits.

“A bombshell court ruling today,” Frank O’Donnell of the Clean Air Watch, a Washington D.C.-based environmental group, wrote in an e-mail about Moore’s decision. “This ruling could have far-reaching implications. Those proposing coal plants elsewhere are going to be running for the Excedrin.”

Bruce Nilles of the Sierra Club says the ruling is nonbinding for other states but would most likely be considered when cases involving new or modified coal power plants come before a court. Nationwide, he said, 130 new coal plants are proposed. Of those, nearly 80 are in the permitting process and more than half are being battled in court by the Sierra Club.

“In a case that is being watched across the country, Judge Moore has sent a message that it is not acceptable for the state to put profits over public health,” Thompson said in a statement. “This ruling goes a long way toward protecting the right of Georgians to breathe clean air and sends a message to EPD that it must tighten the standards it uses to approve air pollution permits for companies seeking to build any more coal-fired power plants in this state.” (more…)

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Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thelma Wyatt Cummings Moore has reversed a ruling that would’ve allowed the first coal power plant in the state in 20 years to be built in Early County, putting the brakes on the idea. The case now goes back to a lower court for a hearing.

Click here to read the judge’s ruling.

More details to come. A spokesperson for Dynegy, one of the companies building the plant, said he had not yet seen the ruling. GreenLaw, the environmental law firm who helped fight the plant, is expected to comment later today.

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Earliest date new U.S. offshore drilling might produce oil for market: 2030

Earliest date oil from the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge might produce oil for market: 2018

Estimated amount offshore and ANWR drilling will lower the price of gasoline per gallon in 2025: 3.5 cents

Barrels of oil Americans use daily: 21 million

Barrels of oil Tifton agricultural scientist J.C. Bell says he can produce annually using bio-mass (non-food plant materials): 5 billion

Percent of current U.S. oil consumption 5 billion barrels equals: 65

Annual budget of Bell’s research facility: $60 million

Exxon-Mobil’s average daily profit during the first-quarter of 2008: $119.3 million

Sources: U.S. Department of Energy, Bell BioEnergy Labs, Tifton Gazette, CNNMoney.com

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Georgians may find out next week if they get their first new coal power plant in 20 years.

Lawyers with GreenLaw, an environmental law firm that argued against the Longleaf Plant in Early County, said Fulton County Superior Court Thelma Wyatt Cummings Moore will issue a ruling between Monday and Thursday. The case examines whether the state Environmental Protection Division acted appropriately in not requiring the proposed coal plant to regulate its carbon dioxide emissions, the greenhouse gas scientists say is concentrating in the atmosphere and causing global warming.

Dynegy Co. and LS Power, the two companies pushing the plant, say it would add to the impoverished county’s tax base and bring much-needed jobs to the area. A host of opponents and critics said most of the created jobs would be temporary construction positions and that any benefit to the county would be outweighed by the health impact of the plant’s harmful emissions. The Medical Association of Georgia issued a resolution opposing any new coal plants in the state because of their emissions’ unhealthy effects.

It’s a tough call, however. Even Moore expressed difficulty with the position in which she was placed, as she stated from the bench during the case’s June 3 hearing:

“No one can be employed if they’re falling down dying,” she said, adding that she had 19 boxes of documents sitting in the clerk’s office that she needed to examine. “We need to look at both the economy and the environment. That’s what I will do.”

Moore’s ruling could establish a precedent as well, something that Dynegy’s lawyers argued would be inappropriate were it decided by a judge rather than politicians. Should Moore rule against the plant, her court would be the first in the country to do so.

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First it was Kudzu, then it was Shonen Knife. Now this.

The newest gift from Japan is a car that runs on water. Freshwater, saltwater, rain — it doesn’t matter. One liter of the liquid, researchers say, is enough to power the little mobile for 50 miles in an hour.

Sadly, this doesn’t help us. At least not metro Atlanta. There’s another problem:

“The car will continue to run as long as you have a bottle of water to top up from time to time,” Genepax CEO Kiyoshi Hirasawa told local broadcaster TV Tokyo.

This might work in fueling rental scooters in Panama City Beach, Fla., but inland, the Mayorz hate the bottlez. Add to the fact that amping up production of bottled water to fuel entire fleets of cars would probably offset any environmental gains made if we eased off gasoline. (It takes 17 million barrels of oil every year to manufacture plastic bottles, most of which end up in landfills.)

Please continue with the innovation, Japan. Send us a car that runs on broken promises and Atlanta will be set!

(Toboggan tip to Crooks and Liars, who has a video of the invention.)

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A resolution that encouraged municipalities to start loving the tap and phase out spending city dollars on bottled water passed today at the annual U.S. Conference of Mayors convention in Miami.

“Cities are sending the wrong message about the quality of public water when we spend taxpayer dollars on water in disposable containers from a private corporation,” San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom said in a release. “Our public water systems are among the best in the world and demand significant and ongoing investment.”

Mayor Shirley Franklin attended this weekend’s conference but was not present for today’s vote. A spokesperson says she left early to Savannah for the Georgia Municipal Association’s annual convention. A spokesperson says Franklin helped clarify language in the resolution that wouldn’t prohibit bottled water outright, but use municipal water when it was most feasible. The legislation was sponsored by mayors from 17 U.S. cities including Seattle, Chicago and New York City.

(You didn’t think the city that was bailed out by the world’s favorite sugared-water manufacturer in 1934 would snub its nose at said bottler, did you?)

According to Corporate Accountability International, a big-business watchdog group who applauded the resolution, cities spend an estimated $70 million each year on disposing of plastic bottles. The group says cities such as San Francisco spend more than $500,000 on annual contracts for bottled water.

“It’s just plain common sense for cities to stop padding the bottled water industry’s bottom line at taxpayer expense,” said Gigi Kellett of the group and national direct