Green Options

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A Superior Court Judge in Fulton County, Georgia has ruled that construction of Dynegy’s Longleaf plant be halted until it is assured the plant will limit the amount of carbon dioxide it releases.

The original permit would have allowed the plant to emit 9 million tons of carbon dioxide annually, something the court said was unreasonable.

The court cited the Supreme Court’s 2007 ruling recognizing that carbon dioxide is a pollutant under the federal Clean Air Act.  It’s the first time any court has applied the ruling to an industrial source.

Commenting on the ruling, Bruce Nilles, director of the Sierra Club’s National Coal Campaign said:

“Coal-fired power plants emit more than 30% of our nation’s global warming pollution.  Thanks to this decision, coal plants across the country will be forced to live up to their clean coal rhetoric.”

Rising prices for everything from copper and platinum to flour, gas and cooking oil are creating new markets for trend-minded thieves across the U.S.

With gasoline prices in the U.S. breaking new records weekly, for example, law enforcement officials are seeing more cases of cooking grease thefts from fast-food establishments and other restaurants. Why used grease? Because cooking oil can be converted into biodiesel fuel that can be sold at a cool profit.

When I sat down with Enterprise Rent-a-Car’s VP of Corporate Responsibility and Communications Pat Farrell, and Christine Conrad, VP of Public Relations, in January, both spent a fair amount of time talking about the company’s large fleet of greener vehicles: hybrids, flex-fuel vehicles, and higher-mileage cars. As a couple of commenters noted on those posts, though, finding the greener car you want may be a challenge. Enterprise’s Dan Miller, general manager for Atlanta, also heard these concerns from their customers (particularly corporate accounts), so he decided to do something about it. Now, Atlanta residents wanting to rent either a hybrid or higher-mileage (28 mpg or higher) vehicle from the company know where to go: one of the area’s four “green” branches.

Each of these branches carries stocks about 100 cars, and about 60% of the vehicles at each branch consist of greener vehicles. In a short call last week, Pat (and colleague Lisa Martini) told me that these branches are not focusing on flex-fuel vehicles, as the fueling infrastructure in Atlanta doesn’t support their widespread use. He also noted that Miller’s decision was based on “the need for green in Atlanta” because of the high amounts of traffic congestion, as well as customer demand for the vehicles. He stressed throughout the call, though, that this was a “grassroots” decision: Enterprise sees itself as a “confederation of local operations (owner Andy Taylor’s phrase), and Miller’s decision reflects any local managers ability to manage his/her fleet to meet local needs. He expects that other regional managers will be watching developments in Atlanta closely.

In yet another ludicrous example of people being punished for conserving (see a previous instance here), water-strapped Atlanta and Fulton County are mulling a 15-percent water rate hike to offset revenue losses caused by residents trying to reduce their consumption.

While Northerners are still hoping for the snow to melt and the temperatures to crack the freezing point, folks down South are rolling up their sleeves and slipping on their gardening gloves. Which is why the Little Creek Farm Conservancy in Decatur, Georgia, will hold one of its semi-annual “Manure Days” this Saturday.

Tennessee officials have fired back a salvo at the state of Georgia, which recently passed resolutions aimed at “correcting” an 1818 survey and moving its border north to gain access to water from the Tennessee River.

Chattanooga Mayor Ron Littlefield’s response was to proclaim today, Wednesday, Feb. 27, “Give Our Georgia Friends a Drink Day” (GOGFADD?). To observe the day, Littlefield is dispatching his aide Matt Lea — in a coonskin cap, no less — to deliver a truckload of bottled water to Atlanta.

The proclamation creating GOGFADD has already itself been widely proclaimed as priceless. Judge for yourself:

Expanding on a previous post, the development of proposed I-3 has taken a fresh turn as legislators push for development and opposition continues to mount. There have been set-backs and victories on all sides, and now the stakes are raised. I-3 is moving slowly towards the first inklings of action while another major road is proposed through the same region. Like an ancient, sleeping monster, the cliche-inspired “Corridor K” has reared its head to threaten not one, but two major recreational rivers and two wilderness areas.

I-3 Update:

After years of political maneuvering and bureaucratic mire, 1.3 million dollars have been allocated to study possible routes for I-3. Even this seemingly small step has not gone without controversy or contention. Paul Broun of Georgia campaigned against I-3 last year and won a seat in the House of Representatives, affirming,”I am totally against I-3. I would like to de-fund the study” on June 29, 2007. Safely elected, today he sings a different tune; he favors the road but not in his home state: ”There are always environmental impacts from a highway, but it would be much less on the South Carolina side than on the Georgia side.” But even before Broun’s turn around, local opposition has been fierce in Georgia.

“In a town hall meeting in Hiawassee on May 24th 2005, 650 people showed up to voice an overwhelming opposition to the project. Then on June 7th in Rabun County, 178 citizens applauded and gave a standing ovation to the Rabun County Commissioner’s unanimous opposition to the proposed interstate through the north Georgia mountains.”

The Florida Solar Energy Center (FSEC) and Washington State University are both developing regional centers to promote energy-efficient technology and “beyond-code” construction.

Both of the “regional building technology application centers” are being funded by a multi-million-dollar grant from the U.S. Department of Energy.

Alabama, Georgia and Florida are expected to miss their Friday, Feb. 15, deadline for reaching a regional water-sharing agreement, the Associated Press reported today.

The states have been squabbling for years, and the situation only grew worse as last year’s drought drove levels at Lake Lanier — Atlanta’s main water supply — perilously low. When that happened, Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue did more than pray for rain (though he did that, too): he asked the feds to let his state hold back more water in its reservoirs rather than maintain federally mandated river flows into Alabama and Florida.

It’s been said that all politics is local, but environmentalism works the same way: knowing that far-flung parts of the world face environmental problems is one thing, but seeing environmental problems in our own backyards makes us take things far more personally. It’s NIMBY in reverse.

In the U.S., every state in the Union — from California’s legal hassles with the feds over its greenhouse gas emissions standards to Georgia’s water struggles — faces its own unique [...]