Big Energy Firms Blocking Solar Power in South

[kpete]

Source: IPS

U.S.:
Big Energy Firms Blocking Solar Power in South
Matthew Cardinale

ATLANTA, Georgia, 31 Mar (IPS) - As citizens, businesses and non-profit organisations seek to transition to cleaner power sources like solar and wind, some big energy firms whose business models rely on polluting sources are standing in the way.

In Georgia, the energy company Georgia Power has lobbied for favourable public policies at the Public Service Commission (PSC) and State legislature that are making it difficult for the state's residents to transition to solar power.

IPS learned that the Dekalb County school system wanted to put solar panels on their schools, but could not do it because of state policies like the Territorial Electric Service Act of 1973 which gives Georgia Power a monopoly over the purchase of energy.

"In Georgia, we have about a dozen state policies preventing creation of solar energy," James Marlow, vice chair of the Georgia Solar Energy Association, told IPS. "One of those is the Territorial Act."

Read more: http://ipsnorthamerica.net/news.php?idnews=2958

[msongs]

1. our terrorist threat comes out of corporate board rooms n their political allies nt

[louis-t]

2. And I suppose they're exempt from Anti-trust laws?

How can they have a "monopoly"?

[Mopar151]

5. Regulated public utilities n/t

[ensho]

3. kick

nt

[DCofVA]

4. The future is solar, and I want to see it!

Get the hell out of the way you greedy oil and coal corporate bastards!

[Mr. Sparkle]

6. Given that its Goeriga, i am surprised their still not using whale oil.

[supernova]

7. Hee Hee!

:D

Georgia Power does seem to be first among dicks, according to this article.

[supernova]

8. NC = 12% renewables by 2020

It's paltry, but it's a starter standard at least.

I want to be one of the ones who goes solar in the next 10 years. Next five if I can manage it.

[dgibby]

9. Too bad the Govt doesn't address the REAL energy problem

instead of screwing up the environment. Drill baby,drill, indeed!:grr:

[fascisthunter]

10. great "free-market" we have here, huh?

fuck the 'market"... free the people!

[daggahead]

11. As Gomer Pile used to say ...

Surprise, surprise, surprise!

[starroute]

12. Not surprisingly, Georgia Power is a subsidiary of Southern Co.

Southern Co. has been dirty forever, and they're at the root of most the the energy company scandals in the south. Greg Palast has been going after them for years, but so far none of it seems to have stuck.

http://atlanta.creativeloafing.com/gyrobase/PrintFriendly?oid=oid%3A11816

04.09.2003

Some of the tastiest passages in Palast's book have compelling local interest.

Consider: He went after Atlanta's Southern Co. for keeping two sets of books that enabled it to charge customers for $61 million in spare parts that had not been used. A Southern senior veep, Jake Horton, was going to blow the whistle on this and other company misdeeds such as illegal payments to politicians. But, on April 10, 1989, Horton boarded a corporate plane to go to a meeting where he planned to confront Southern's top brass -- and the plane exploded. Why the big boom? No one knows -- or is saying.

Palast's reporting almost resulted in the criminal indictment of the company -- until Bush the First had his Justice Department intervene and declare that all of the alleged wrongdoing was kosher because an accounting firm had OK'd the cooked books. That accounting firm was none other than Arthur Andersen, whose ill fame would peak a decade later in the Enron meltdown.

"Jake's death and the failure to indict Southern and Andersen in 1989 marked the radical turning point, albeit unseen at the time, in the way corporate America would do business," Palast comments in his book.

That turn would lead to the massive corruption of Enron, Global Crossing and the other mega-crooks.