TVA board approves 1.5 percent electricity rate increase, $10B budget
The Tennessee Valley Authority Board of Directors on Wednesday approved a $10.37 billion budget for its 2018 fiscal year that includes a 1.5 percent rate increase for electricity customers, reports the News Sentinel.
Even with solar panels, Al Gore’s home still using 21 times national average in electricity
Despite installing solar panels after past reporting on high electricity use at his home in the fashionable Nashville suburb of Belle Meade, former Vice President Al Gore Jr. still is using 21 times as much electricity as the average American as he champions energy conservation and voices concern over climate change, according to the National Center for Public Policy Research.
Developer suspends $100M Cumberland County wind turbine project (‘Welcome news,’ says Alexander)
Apex Clean Energy Inc. has suspended plans for developing a controversial wind turbine project in eastern Cumberland County, reports the Crossville Chronicle. The move comes three months after the legislature declared a moratorium until July, 2018 on such projects while a study committee meets to consider drafting state regulations for electricity-generating wind turbines. has been suspended by the developer.
“Based on current market conditions and the project’s fundamental qualities, we have decided not to make this significant investment at this time,” Harry Snyder, development manager, wrote. “Our work on the Crab Orchard Wind project will be therefore suspended until market conditions change to make the project more competitive.”
Rick Perry visits Oak Ridge as Trump pushes cuts to Department of Energy budget
Newly appointed Secretary of Energy Rick Perry toured several labs at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Y-12 National Security Complex Monday, reports the News Sentinel. The former Texas governor rode around in 3D-printed vehicles and talked about President Donald Trump’s proposed budget cuts for the Department of Energy.
According to Science Magazine, Trump’s proposed budget would cut $900 million, some 17 percent, of the $5 billion budget for DOE’s Office of Science. And it would eliminate DOE’s roughly $300 million Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy.
“I know how to budget, I know how to manage and I know how to prioritize. Obviously what you see here, I happen to think is a high priority,” he said. “I have not been in the job long enough to go through line item by line item, but because the budgeting process is nigh upon us here, I’m doing my homework every day.
“Hopefully, we will be able to make that argument to our friends in Congress, that what DOE is involved with, particularly on the economic development side, plays a vital role not only in the security of America, but in the economic well-being of this country as we go forward,” he said.
Perry said the budgeting process was not his first rodeo, something ORNL Lab Director Thom Mason could relate to.
“I mean we’re an Office of Science lab, so if you reduce Office of Science budget by 17 percent we’re going to feel that … if that was the final answer I would be quite worried with how we would respond,” Mason said after the tour. “Having been through the budget process many, many times now I kind of recognize that you need to let things play out.”
Perry agreed and said he expects to see the proposed budget change before it is passed.
Lamar Alexander really likes one bill passed in 2017 legislative session
U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, though generally declaring a reluctance to involve himself in matters of state policy despite his status as a former governor, has made an exception in the case of a bill imposing a temporary block on construction of wind-powered electricity generation that was signed into law last week. The measure meshes with his status at the national level as a big opponent generally of wind power and a big proponent of nuclear energy for electricity generation.
The wind energy moratorium bill (HB1021 by Rep. Cameron Sexton, R-Crossville, and Sen. Paul Bailey, R-Sparta) is basically a compromise between Apex Energy, which plans a big wind turbine development near Crossville, and intense opposition to the development from Cumberland County constituents of Sexton and Bailey who would be impacted.
The deal allows the company to continue its preliminary work, though not beginning actual construction while the moratorium runs until next July 1 – basically in accord with company plans. In the meantime, a legislator committee will look at whether the state government should regulate wind turbines and give its recommendations to the General Assembly in January.
News release from Sen. Lamar Alexander (belatedly posted)
WASHINGTON, D.C., May 12, 2017 – U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) today said Governor Haslam’s signature on legislation approved by the Tennessee General Assembly will give Tennesseans “an opportunity to decide whether we want our landscape littered with unreliable wind turbines over two times as tall as the skyboxes at the University of Tennessee football stadium.”
Alexander praises TN moratorium on wind power generation
U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, a longtime critic of wind-powered electricity generation, is praising a state House vote to place a partial moratorium on such developments in Tennessee while a special committee of state lawmakers drafts rules for regulating them, reports the News Sentinel.
“This will give Tennesseans the opportunity to evaluate whether we want our landscape littered with wind turbines that are over two times as tall as the skyboxes at the University of Tennessee football stadium and produce only a small amount of unreliable electricity,” Alexander said in an emailed statement.
The bill approved by the House 85-3 on Thursday (HB1021) amounts to a compromise that sponsor Rep. Cameron Sexton, R-Crossville, said had been agreed upon by “all stakeholders.” That includes Apex Energy Solutions, which has stirred considerable controversy in Cumberland County with plans to spend $130 million erecting at least 20 electricity-generating turbines on a mountain near Crab Orchard.
