Progress Energy
I thought about starting this topic when Progress Energy was requesting their rate increases, but didn't. There has been some comments about Progress Energy, so here is a topic. It is an open discussion, but I do want to say that I was angered about Progress Energy's request for rate increase earlier this year. Their reasoning for the request was absurd. From what I read in the paper they were needing it because demand was down due to less houses and because they needed to build two new nuke plants. I guess supply and demand does not apply to the electrical business. If demand is down, then cost is supposed to follow, and if demand is down then why do they need two new power plants and why do we have to pay for it. Are we not paying for it every month? Any company I have worked for expanded when profit and growth allowed it and did not raise prices to do it. Is Progress Energy not making a profit? Sure they are and they can raise prices to build because they have no competition.
This was in the St. Pete times, and there isn't any category for it, If you are a Progress Energy user sounds like they are trying to screw the users royally.
Legislators want Progress Energy to suspend rate increases
Two Tampa Bay legislators have called on Progress Energy to suspend rate increases that will drive power bills up 25 percent starting in January.
State Rep. Peter Nehr of Tarpon Springs and state Sen. Mike Fasano of New Port Richey want the St. Petersburg utility to forgo charging customers for the early stages of its $17-billion nuclear plant.
Under a state law passed in 2006, the utility can start charging customers for nuclear plants years before they start producing electricity. Progress Energy customers will begin paying $11.42 per 1,000 kilowatt hours for the Levy County project starting in January, which comes out to about $13 a month for the average customer. The remainder of Progress Energy’s increase is to pay for sharply higher 2008 fuel costs.
“In a time when we are in a deep recession I have constituents who are struggling to make ends meet,” said Fasano, who voted in favor of the nuclear cost legislation. “I ask Progress Energy to not make things more difficult by implementing the increased power rates that have already been approved by the Florida Public Service Commission. The very people who will be paying these rates are the people who are losing their homes, desperately scraping together enough money to pay their rent and buy food for their children. I ask Progress Energy to approach its shareholders and seek the funds they need from them rather than lay the burden on its customers.”
Asjylyn Loder, Times Staff Writer
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As I stated several months ago.
With the TCDA doing nothing about any jobs or industry Taylor County could go into the energy business. Tallahassee generates their own electricity, makes good profits, has reasonable rates, creates jobs and provides competition.
With the Green movement at its peak Taylor County could construct a wood fired electrical generating system. Grants and other funds are out there for just such a project.
The plant would use pelletized wood to fire the boilers, the logging industry would not be held hostage to the whims of Buckeye, the fuel is renewable, jobs would be created, electrical rates would drop or remain stable, excess energy by law would have to be bought by Progress Energy at the going rate.
So we have:
Jobs creation
A continuing customer for loggers and land owners
A revenue stream for the county through selling electricity
An expanded tax base.
Lower taxes for the residents
Extra services and pride in the community
The list goes on and on of good things this idea would make happen.
The TCDA should be avoided - the TCDA is in the pocket of big business - has no original ideas and is a drain to the county budget.
We have all the resources - we just don't have the leaders or managers with the imagination and drive to bring it into being.
The Taylor County Electrical Authority has a good ring to it.
We are suffering from a lack of leadership and innovation - the same old tired people with the same old lack of initative. Politicians and officials are screaming about not having money to provide services but do nothing except meet every once in a while and have a Subway sandwich and stare at one another like goons and call it a meeting.
I'm afraid that Buckeye may have undue influence over the idea of Taylor County generating their own revenue stream (electricity)because Buckeye may want to get into the business of selling electricity.
Think about it - it is a good and feasible idea whose time has come.
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In response to Deep Thought:
Sounds like an excellent idea to me. But it also sounds like it could cause a ruckus.
It has been in my mind for a while that the day may come when Buckeye pulp will no longer be in such demand. But local power generation may, by that time, be in huge demand. Could the mill be successfully converted? However, I do not see them moving in that direction until they absolutely have to. Which ain't anytime soon (IMO).
Local power generation, completely outside of the realm of Buckeye - It's something I have never really thought about. We have a new subject to ponder.
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We @ the mill are in the process of adding a power turbine at the mill to become more self sufficient and not rely as much from Progress Energy.
With the potential of the Turbine we may be able to sell energy back to PE.
If we had a Power plant here we could also help provide a lower cost power supply for this as well as surrounding counties.
There was an article in the TACO times a few months back if you would like to read up on it.
There are also other projects that are going on out there that all might not be aware of.
So before you write the mill off as not being a part of the solution or think we are not looking for way to improve things for the surrounding area, ask someone.
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Whats up with this? Electric bills too high file a complaint with the PSC about Progress Energy high rates. But please understand there is already(produced under industrial zone permit) unregulated electricity being fed into the grid from power plant in Perry. Once again, get real. Doing the same old thing over and over again expecting a different outcome is insane.Continuing to support the same old ideas which do little more than take advantage of a community that is over polluted and depressed is shameful. This is another attempt by the haves to take advantage of the have nots. It would be nice to have all the information before decisions were made but if that happened there would be no advantage to the Same old, same old who's very best thinking gets us right here.
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Just A Thought, yes it sounds good but I did a little resurch and I'm sure we would tick off that left wing group that ran off the Coal Plant, Looks like coal plants may be better than wood, this is somthing I found and thought I would post it. It come from town that looked into building a wood biomass power plant. This in noway means I'm not for it I just dont think it would fly.
Reasons for not installing a woodchip boiler
By Jim Merkel, Global Living Project Director October 25, 2006
Sustainability Coordinator
Office of the Provost
63 South Main, Room 316
HB 6011
Dartmouth College
Hanover, NH 03755-3529
Dartmouth College
1. Greater CO2/BTU
Wood chips 221.943 pounds of CO2 per Million BTU
#6 oil 173.906
#2 oil 161.386
Solar Thermal 0
2. Accelerates greenhouse gas emissions -- Instantaneous release of carbon through burning which would take decades to release through decay
3. Dangerous trend for New England Forests -- Trades negative impacts, without clear ecological benefit.
Benefits: releases carbon on earthÕs surface, local fuel source, reduce dependence on foreign oil
Costs: Consumes large amounts of bioproductivity at a time in history when extinction rates are 100 to 1000 times faster than historic levels (due to habitat loss and human encroachment), the planets forests cannot sequester the carbon currently released and we have better alternatives.
4. The alternatives to a woodchip boiler could be further explored. Quantum efficiency and conservation programs would also reduce expenses, but also be a clear environmental solution reducing greenhouse gas emissions and environmental impacts.
5. Forests have the highest value of all land types for ecosystem services.
$33 trillion / 28 million acres = 1.2 million /acre
Bob Costanza at the University of Vermont developed a methodology that assigns a monetary value to 17 ecosystem services. These include soil formation, recreation, nutrient cycling, water regulation and supply, climate regulation, habitat, flood and storm protection, food and raw materials production, genetic resources, atmospheric gas balance and pollination. A team of researchers from the United States, Argentina, and the Netherlands has put an average price tag of US$33 trillion a year on these fundamental ecosystem services, which are largely taken for granted because they are free. That is nearly twice the value of the global gross national product (GNP) of US$18 trillion [1]
http://esd.uvm.edu/ What is the value of forests ecosystem services compared against industrial logging?
6. Woodchips have no value added component. Some European countries get over 10 times the jobs per unit of wood cut. Woodchips, pulp and dimensional lumber are the least value-added products possible. Burning biomass in 2006 se
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Here is more of it but I'll spare you the rest because it is quite long and I'm sure we all get the jest of it....
7. The quantity needed to provide energy to an economy or system that has not done their conservation work first it large. As a back of the envelope calculation:
About one cord a year translates into a 1.9 acre footprint (from my book Radical Simplicity) this figure is adjusted to world average forest productivity so someone in Africa on land with lower productivity wouldn't be unfairly measured. Our forests in New England are about double world average forest productivity.
8. Scientific community is not in agreement as to biomass fuels carbon spectrum over time. Younger forests have shallower roots and if managed by frequent rotations will likely deplete surface nutrients and compact soils.
Stands managed as old growth sequester more carbon:
25 year old forest: 12,000 lbs of carbon / 25 = 480 lbs of C per acre per year x 44/12 =1,760 lbs of CO2 per acre per year
120 year old forest: 128,000 lbs of carbon / 120 = 1,066 lbs of C per year per acre x 44/12 =3,909 lbs of CO2 per acre per year
9. I don't see there being an ecological free lunch -- that is to say, woodchips being a so-called waste, could build soil adding carbon and nitrogen, duff, water retentionÉ As a gardener knows, if you continue to take from the land without returning nutrient, the land slowly degrades. What is the long term effect of forests after several industrial logging operations? How soon would even so-called waste-food be consumed leaving trees to be chipped? A BC forester, Herb Hammond, said that it can take 250 years for creek timing and flow patterns to return to normal after an industrial logging operation.
10. I feel like I need to apologize, I love forests. IÕve walked miles of industrial forests. To get the volume needed to feed municipal of institutional boilers requires industrial impacts to the landscape.
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Large wood pellet production facilities are now being built in the southeast of the US to feed europe with a renewable power source. There is a need for a fuel source in europe and they don't want coal.
Wood pellets take on diferent attributes than raw wood and generate more BTUs per pellet. Ample land and fast growing species of wood is available. The European Union has several lucrative contracts with local wood producers to provide wood pellets for years to come. Taylor County should explore the feasibility of generating its own electrical power what ever method is acceptable and to take some of the greed out of Progress Energy. We must think ahead - this is just the first of many "rate" adjustments Progress will "need" in the future.
The profits that Progress Energy will demand of us could be used to buid a system to compete with them.
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I agree with you the need is there but unless Taylor County as a whole gets behind it and tell the Taylor Green Mafia to sit down and shut up the wants of few will out way the needs of many and your still stuck with high energy prices> the above was just a sample of any given info you could pull off the internet to give reason that wood burning plants are bad but hey I can show you a sight that swares MR. Ed was a Zebra. Just A Thought
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How can you love a forest when you can not see/ find a forest for the trees?
First, a pine tree plantation does not a forest make.
Second, 840-870 planted (cellulose) pines per acre are tree farms not forest.
Third, where is the forest diversification? Black jack, white, laurel, water, live, don’t you remember the oak trees, sable palms, cypress and bay?
Fourth, where are the natural growth forests? Get real.
Fifth, Silva-culture produces a sterile environment in which the pine tree thrives, other plants known as under growth/bush and native species which are required to be identified as a forest can not survive.
Sixth, Can you define Silva-gas, Silva-culture, syn-fuel and bio waste/chicken house waste connection to biomass fuels and energy production?
Seventh, how long can a pine tree plantation sustain without subsidy?
Hint: The answer is not very long.
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If you are refuring to the info I posted above reread it, Its from someone else I reposted it to make a point. The writer of the full article title is "Reasons for not installing a woodchip boiler By Jim Merkel, Global Living Project Director October 25, 2006.
Call me crazy but you arguing with one of your own and you both are on the same side. But hey its a free world.
And as for you other info good points but sometimes when you are too far left or to far right you forget that there has to be a Middle ground and thats were WE all have to live. Some time you forget that not only the trees have to live here people do to and people have to have jobs and guess what Goverment has to have money to run, like it or not. So you can say they are working a sweet deal or you can see they are trying to work a Middle ground as to whats best for all. But hey this is all Just A Thought.
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Ahhh… apathy
“the government needs funds to run, people need jobs, this is where we live, and best of all, not only do the trees have to live here”. Consider this if the trees/forest can not live here “We” may not be able to live here either. My third grade earth science teacher explained it this way; People breathe in oxygen, breathe out carbon dioxide, while trees breathe in carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen. See the connection. It’s kind of like soup and sandwich, love and marriage, bull and bs, all go together. http://www.emc.maricopa.edu/faculty/farabee/BIOBK/BioBookPS.html#What%20is%20Photosynthesis? The photo below came from this web-site.
But let’s look for middle ground. Let’s explore the question, is this present plan (2060 Visioning) another sweet deal? Or is it a sincere attempt to find middle ground? Did you read the news in the local paper or did I tell you about the 2.5 million? Are “We” in the woods or in the dark?
There may be some middle ground but you find it/look for it, because I have never witnessed a balanced approach to issues of importance in Perry and I’ve been here a long time. As you stated “like it or not” and “We” and “I am on a side”. I don’t have a side only a point of view.
I do not know who you are and did not make comments personally to you. I apologize for not making myself clear and offending you if that’s the issue, this was never my intention. Post on this site appear to be sensitive areas for those with baggage/ history of side taking and assuming it is all about them. I see this as a foolish approach/thought process considering one well known defense/strategy is to divide and conquer. But now that you have approached me with this topic to debate, I am responding with my thoughts on the subject.
My point of view is, Poor defenseless Taylor County, A community without champions, is being taken to the cleaner/for a ride, again. Is it fueled by apathy or job security? Just a question.
My opinion is as follows: Why this continues to happen is a phenomenon known as trauma bonding, that is to say, abused persons side/are loyal to their abuser because they have no alternative, no middle ground, and no protection. But that’s only true if you believe to be taken advantage of for one hundred years, amounts to abuse.
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No Offenses at all its a post, I see what you were doing now from were I was standing it looked like you was aguring a point aginst somthing you was writing to support. Well done I must say as for apathy, nope! more like realest there are somethings that have to happen even if we don't like what they are doing thats the reason we get to vote people in and out of office. Do I think they are right all the time no. do I think they try to get right yes. Its hard thing to stay nutral as to what is best for a county as a whole. If you get a elected offical that leans to far one way or another hes not being fair to the county as a whole. They have to put aside personal beliefs sometimes and vote for some thing they personal are aginst. Yes I have seen this first hand many times, not from all but from some. Would I love to see some great green friendly Corp set foot in Taylor, yes I would but I don't think thats going to happen we have very little to offer. So we have to take what we can get because it is needed Towns around us are dieing and we are 50 miles from nowhere fast so most place don't want to set foot here when the can set up shop in Valdosta were GA. gives them all the friendly help they need and there is a Interstate right in the back yard. Taylor is a victim to its land size 3rd largest in the state and placement in the state. I don't think we will ever get to pick and chose who comes here to set up shop do to the location being very Isolated, that sets Taylor up for the types of Business that no one wants in their back yard. I Like the trauma bonding but I don't think its the right fit for what we are locked into but close enough to not argue the point. As for my government needs money to run I look no further than or beloved Gov Crist. He planed all this tax cutting and left Fl. with no money to run he should have worked it the other way cut the budget then work on cutting were the money was coming from. Yes I think there is a lot of waste in government but you get the cart infront of the horse and well schools have no money, and roads we drive on lose funding and the poor countys like Taylor don't get grant money that comes from richer countys so more has to come from Taylor citizens. BTW didn't I read were Tally was trying shooting 2060 in the foot? or was that some one else going after it.
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Eighth, how much tax payer dollars are being used to promote these ideas and applications which require enormous amounts of consideration for, exemptions of, and monies/revenue dollars from the county and state?
Sharpen up your pencil and do the real math. Does it cost more than it’s worth?
Point: Where are the natural growth forests which conserve water, provides animal habitat, reduce storm damage as natural buffers, and prevent fire damage and cost to state for fire protection?
Point: Mallory swamp fire cost the state 3.5 million dollars to control/put out, burned thirty four days, and the cost to tax payer was never completely calculated because no one counted the cost of respiratory illness by those exposed to long term smoke inhalation or cost of evacuation of families in areas affected, and cost to state to purchase land and redirect water back into a swamp area drained through state approved reclamation of lands to plant pine trees. Pine trees production is no longer seen as viable use of state controlled land. That is until profits to be made are assessed by those who wish to develop new industry at the expense of tax payer.
Tree farmers can hold large tracks of land through agriculture taxes breaks, while home owners and citizens pay the most tax per capita for services received.
Is there a need to keep the public/citizens in the woods about another sweet deal?
I think everyone knows the answer to that. Wasn’t there an approval by TCBCC for a renewable energy grant for the local ‘special interest” of 2.5 million dollars, last week?
I think everyone knows the answer to these questions already. This isn’t connect a dot, make a picture, it’s connect a dot, make a neon arrow and we all know which direction it’s pointed.
Now tell me again where is the forest you love? You know the one, it’s the one that biomass will burn the waste.
But you know what they say: Holding on to anything with both hands as hard as you can, leaves you without a free hand to grab something better should it come along. Are you holding on so tight that you are stuck to the same old, same old that has never produced much good to the community or else you would not be where you are? Are you looking to the same leadership which got you right where you are to improve your conditions?
Well all I can say is good luck with that, and I sincerely hope it works for you this time.
Beside if it doesn’t work this time you can try it again.
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IF BUSINESS WAS CONDUCTED LIKE PROGRESS ENERGY WE WOULD HAVE AN AWESOME ECONOMY. LOOK AT OUR LOCAL HOSPITAL. 5 MILLION IN DEPT. OBVIOUSLY POOR MANAMGEMENT IN THE PAST HAS ALOT TO DO WITH THIS BUT THE NEW BOARD IS TRYING TO TURN IT AROUND. IF AN PROGRESS ENERGY EMPLOYEE WERE TO NEED OUR EMERGENCY ROOM OR EMERGENCY SURGERGY WE WOULD NOT TURN THEM AWAY IF THEY ALREADY OWED A PAST DUE BILL. BUT LET YOUR ENERGY BILL BE LATE AND THEY COULD CARE LESS SHUT IT OFF. IF WE RAN BUSINESS LIKE PROGRESS ENERGY RAISE RATES DEMAND PAYMENT AND SET THE PRICE WEATHER YOU CAN AFFORD IT OR NOT WE WOULD ALL BE IN GOOD SHAPE. I UNDERSTAND THAT THEY HAVE TO MAKE A PROFIT BUT WE NEED TO BOYCOT THIS OUTRAGIS PRACTICE OF RAISING RATES AND IF WE DONT PAY IT CUT IT OFF. HOW WOULD EMPLOYEE'S OF FLORIDA PROGRESS ENERGY FEEL IF ANYWHERE IN THERE CAVERAGE AREA A HOPITAL SAID NO SERVICES UNTIL YOUR BILL IS PAID. WHY IS THIS A BIG DEAL, BECAUSE MEDICALY ELDERLY PEOPLE HAVE HOME OXYGEN AND NEED ELECTRICITY TO OPERATE THERE MACHINE. NO POWER NO OXYGEN. I THINK COMPLAINTS SHOULD BE FILED WITH EVERY REGULATORY AGENCY IN FLORIDA FROM THE GOVERNOR DOWN. IN CASE PROGRESS ENERGY FORGOY WE ARE IN RESSESSION. PEOPLE ARE STRUGLING TO PAY THE BILLS AND THEY JUST DECIDE TO RAISE OUR BILL BY 31%. BULL.....! I BET THEY ALL HAD A GREAT CHRISTMAS WITHTHIS BONUS. HAPPY..... NEW YEAR AND MAYBE WHEN WE GO GREEN AND USE SOLAR ENERGY WE TOO CAN PUT A LITTLE MONEY BACK FOR HEALTH CARE AND MEDICATIONS ECT.
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July 2008 funding for the elderly energy assistance monies was not applied for, in other words there was funding available to assist seniors with their utilities but the senior center (administrator of program) worker/manager did not ask for/request the funding. So now you know why there is no help. Since July is a very hot month it would seem that applying for funding would be the correct thing to do. But who is minding the store here? I was shocked to learn this information.
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