Latest news with #GPB
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
State regulators should push Georgia Power to mothball coal, methane energy sources
Georgia Power uses methane gas to generate electricity at Plant Yates in Newnan. Grant Blankenship/GPB The Public Service Commission's mission statement says that it is supposed to ensure that Georgians have safe, reliable, and reasonably priced electricity. To be honest, natural (methane) gas and coal and any combustion fuel are neither safe nor reasonable cost. Methane gas is not actually natural, it is a fossil fuel just as coal and oil are fossil fuels. There is an entire scientific article in the prestigious medical journal, the New England Journal of Medicine, titled 'The False Promise of Natural Gas.' This scientific article describes many of the health harms caused by natural methane gas, from production to pipelines to end use in power plants or homes. These health harms include exposure to carcinogens, air and water pollution, earthquakes, pipeline and other facility explosions, and climate change. We know that both coal and methane gas power plants produce many kinds of air pollution, including fine particles (PM2.5), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), and volatile organic compounds or VOCs. Some of these pollutants are precursors for ozone, which is created every day from a chemical reaction in the air between air pollution and sunlight. In addition, there are contaminants in both coal and natural gas that affect our health. Coal contaminants include many heavy metals, including lead, mercury, and arsenic, among others. Natural (methane) gas has benzene and other cyclic aromatics. All of these kinds of pollution and contaminants harm our health and damage our economy. In the U.S., PM2.5 from fossil fuels causes 13% of all deaths, and NO2 from burning fossil fuels causes 1.6% of all deaths. Ozone causes even more deaths, and is known to cause as much progression of emphysema as smoking a pack of cigarettes every day. Ozone also triggers asthma and COPD exacerbations. In the Southeast, all of the kinds of air pollution made by coal and gas power plants put people in the hospital. Recently, we have learned that PM2.5 damages children's IQ, from exposure during the prenatal period through the childhood years. We know that children exposed to air pollution are more likely to have mental health problems too, either within a few days of a PM2.5 spike or even eight years after exposure to NO2 or PM2.5. We know that the kinds of air pollution that coal and methane gas power plants produce will trigger asthma attacks and can cause children to develop asthma. And we have learned that giving air filters to pregnant women who live in polluted cities improves their children's IQ 4 years AFTER the children are born. In California, when coal plants closed, the rate of preterm births for those who lived near the coal plants went down by over 25%. Here in Georgia, more than two-thirds of our rivers and large lakes are contaminated with mercury to the point that the Department of Natural Resources has to publish guidelines every year about which fish need to have limited consumption, because the fish are contaminated with mercury. The vast majority of that mercury came from coal-fired power plants. These are some of the reasons that it is clear that both coal and natural gas are not safe sources of fuel. The PSC needs to be true to its mission, and encourage safer sources of electricity production. In addition, even though Lazard's Levelized Cost of Energy (an energy cost analysis) shows that methane combined cycle and utility scale solar with storage appear to be in the same price range, this ignores the economic harms of reduced crop yields, work absences, and lower work productivity caused by fossil fuels, and also the enormous health costs of all the health damage from both coal and methane. Therefore it is also clear that both methane and coal are not reasonably priced, the stated costs are artificially low because they don't include the enormous economic and health damages. It is massive cost-shifting, and Georgia residents are paying with increased taxes, increased health insurance premiums, and with our own lives. However, it's not all doom and gloom. There is a good solution: we can have abundant affordable electricity without all the health and economic damages. It sounds like pie-in-the-sky, but it's true. Solar with storage is in the same price range as methane gas combined cycle, and wind with storage is less expensive. And both are quicker to build than a new gas turbine power plant. The PSC should require Georgia Power to have much more solar with storage and much less health-damaging methane and coal. And just this week, news came out that Georgia Power will be asking to recover costs from Hurricane Helene next year. Many scientists have shown that Hurricane Helene was more damaging and carried more moisture because of climate change. Yet, while Georgia Power is asking to recover costs of damages from a climate change enhanced hurricane, they are at the same time asking to build new natural gas power plants that will make climate change worse. It doesn't make sense, especially when we know that for about the same cost they could build solar with storage and stop making climate change worse. Georgia has abundant sunshine that is more direct than in much of the United States. It is an abundant natural resource we can easily use without hurting people's health or hurting our crop yields. Georgia power has abundant opportunity for utility scale solar with storage, which is the safest and most reasonable cost form of electricity that there is. The bottom line is this: air pollution is so bad for our health and economy, that you don't have to care about climate to want clean energy. Solar is one of Georgia's most abundant natural resources. The PSC should be true to its mission and require Georgia Power to use more solar and wind energy with storage so that we have safe, affordable, and reliable energy. If you want to comment on Georgia Power's energy plan, you can use this link, or go to the PSC comment form and use Docket Number 56002, Agenda Item 'Georgia Power Company's 2025 Integrated Resource Plan', and the hearing date May 27, 2025. Please make your comment before the hearing. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
23-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Innovative company revolutionizes popular produce item at grocery stores: 'This is a big win'
BrightFarms, a leading player in the indoor farming industry, has begun shipping leafy greens from Macon, Georgia, to grocery stores all across the Southeast U.S. The new Macon location, established toward the end of 2024, is BrightFarms' third regional greenhouse hub, reported PR Newswire. Indoor farming helps optimize land and minimize water usage, resulting in greater and healthier crop yields, according to Forbes. Abiding by its sustainability promise, BrightFarms has been farming indoors with recycled rainwater at its seven pesticide-free greenhouse farms ever since the company's conception in 2011. The operation of regional hubs, moreover, allows BrightFarms to distribute local greens to grocery chains within a close radius. Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB) reveals that the Macon site, for instance, makes its deliveries in a few hours, thanks to its convenient location. "90% of packaged salads in the U.S. are grown on the West Coast of the U.S.," said Jess Soare of BrightFarms marketing, "and they spend 7-10 days on a truck before arriving in Atlanta." By offering a local alternative to West Coast shipments, the regional hub in Macon helps reduce national carbon pollution by cutting down on the number of cross-country delivery trucks burning fuel on the road, all while keeping your produce seven to 10 days fresher. Produce tends to lose nutrients the longer it takes to reach your local grocer, meaning that most of the vegetables you buy each week have declined in nutritional quality even before you load them into your shopping cart. Locally grown produce, like BrightFarms' leafy greens, mitigates the issue by cutting down on shipping time. In fact, all three regional hubs and all seven greenhouses are located in the eastern half of the United States, where deliveries from the West Coast would otherwise take the longest. Based on reports from Produce Grower, a fourth hub in the Northeast is currently in the works. In addition to its eco-conscious efforts, BrightFarms is also working toward societal health and betterment. The Macon location has employed over 250 locals, per GPB, and through its recent partnership with Cox Farms, BrightFarms has designed the "Cox Farms Discovery Center:" a training facility for the next generation of greenhouse workers. In 2025, with three regional hubs in play, BrightFarms anticipates shipping to over 15,000 stores, serving two-thirds of the American population. "This is a big win for our local economy and a step forward in supporting the health of our residents today and for generations to come," Macon Mayor Lester Miller told GBP. What is the biggest reason you don't grow food at home? Not enough time Not enough space It seems too hard I have a garden already Click your choice to see results and speak your mind. Join our free newsletter for easy tips to save more and waste less, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
Yahoo
20-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Bookman: Flushing federal systems down toilet could return Georgia to days of foul water and air
Not so long ago before federal enforcement of the Clean Water Act, heavy rainfall would swamp the city of Atlanta's ancient sewer system, sending hundreds of thousands of gallons of raw, untreated sewage into the Chattahoochee River. GPB/File Our lives rely on systems. Flush the toilet, the sewage system takes it away. Flip an electrical switch, the lights turn on. Hit the brake pedal, the system brings the car safely to a halt. We take those systems for granted, assuming that they'll operate unseen and in the background, because that's how we design them and why we build them. We build them so we know they'll be there when we need them. But these days, critically important systems are being stressed in ways that they weren't designed to withstand. In some cases, systems are being dismantled by people who don't understand what purpose they were created to serve in the first place. Imagine amateur house-flippers, swinging sledgehammers and knocking down interior walls without regard to whether those walls might be load-bearing, then marveling when the roof starts to cave in. All across the federal government, that's what we're now witnessing. Local Social Security and Small Business Administration offices are being shuttered under the rationale that they are infested with fraud, waste and corruption, and thousands of IRS employees are being fired. The National Weather Service is being slashed, as is funding for cancer research and other forms of science. The CDC and our public health system, our legal system, our emergency-management system, our political system and economic system, as well as our 80-year-old system of diplomatic and military alliances, all are being stripped of resources, manpower and credibility without much concern for what the consequence might be. One of President Trump's biggest targets is the Environmental Protection Agency. At a Cabinet meeting last week, Trump announced that 65% of EPA personnel would likely be fired because they just aren't needed, although that number was later walked back for the time being. In announcing a major rollback of air, water and climate enforcement programs, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin last week proclaimed it 'the most momentous day in the history of the EPA.' 'Momentous' is probably accurate, but not for the reasons that Zeldin imagines. Let's take a step back and ponder what we might be doing to ourselves. Most people don't remember that as recently as 25 to 30 years ago, the Atlanta metro region had a serious air-pollution and water-pollution problem. On hot summer days, ground-level ozone levels were so bad that going outdoors would make your eyes sting and your throat and lungs hurt. Schools were told to cancel outdoor recess, and parents were warned not to let their kids go outside and play; outdoor workers were warned about possible lung damage. The ozone alerts went on for weeks at a time. And when a big summer thunderstorm came through and cleared the air, it caused problems of a different sort. Heavy rainfall would swamp the city's ancient sewer system, sending hundreds of thousands of gallons of raw, untreated sewage into the Chattahoochee River, where our downstream neighbors were understandably displeased. Under the Clean Air and Clean Water acts, the EPA demanded that those problems be corrected, that systems be created to fix them. State and local officials, egged on by the region's business community, complained bitterly at the time that what EPA was demanding was impossible. It would be too expensive, they said, and it wouldn't work anyway because smog was 'natural' in this region. Atlanta's growth, they warned, would have to be stopped dead in its tracks if the federal government got its way. Since then, though, metro Atlanta has doubled in population. Coal-burning power plants were cleaned up or closed down. Gasoline was reformulated and vehicle inspection programs implemented. Major highway programs such as the Outer Perimeter were canceled, and development alternatives to sprawl were embraced. As a result, bad ozone days, which often numbered over a hundred a year in the '90s, are now down to one or two days annually, and Atlanta's sewage systems are much improved. What some had deemed impossible was instead achieved. But here's the thing: For the most part, we don't have a cultural or institutional memory of those days, even though they were barely a generation ago. The air is clear and breathable, our sewage systems work and we just take it all for granted, as if this is the natural state of things, as if this is how it has always been and always will be. And it's just not true. If we don't take care of our systems, they can't take care of us. And of course, it's not just environmental protection. Through vaccines, better sanitation and the hard work and dedication of the CDC and other agencies, we've been so successful at eliminating deadly diseases that we no longer remember how many lives they used to take. We've forgotten why we needed vaccines in the first place. In the world of foreign policy, we haven't faced a major war for 80 years, so why do we need the NATO alliance. On health care, through Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, more Americans have access to health care than ever before. But none of this is permanent. We can't starve those systems and still expect they'll be there when we need them. It's as if we're playing a giant game of Jenga with our country, pulling out a piece here, then a piece there, wondering which piece will be the one that makes the structure fall. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
