Posts Tagged ‘Kemper Plant’
Southern Company’s Dream
The Southern Company’s dream of a multi-billion plant to transform lignite into electricity will be history in four short years. According to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the gasifiers and chemical plant will be scrapped by 2024. Remediation of the Liberty lignite mine will be completed this year.
Read MoreWhat Can’t Go on Forever Won’t
This version of Stein’s Law could be about lots of long running Ponzi schemes. But this is about Mississippi Power’s Kemper County Lignite Plant’s big brothers — two nuclear power plants (Vogtle) under construction in Georgia and their Southern Company daddy. And about regulatory systems that prop up an archaic business model that puts interests of utilities and their shareholders ahead of customers.
Read MoreSouthern Company Earnings Take a Hit
Residents of the Mississippi Gulf Coast must be breathing a sigh of relief with the news from the Southern Company in Georgia.
Read MoreSouthern Company Shedding Assets to Cover Kemper Plant Losses
Now that regulators have ruled in favor of ratepayers in Mississippi, the Southern Company needs some cash to cover its losses.
Read MorePeak Idiocy
Peak idiocy is an apt description of the Kemper County Lignite craze that possessed a former governor, the Mississippi Public Service Commission before the last election, and other notables. I borrowed the term from a recent article in Investor’s Business Daily entitled “Goodbye, OPEC” which asked this question: “Doesn’t it seem like yesterday when the left was running around shrieking about ‘peak oil?’ More like peak idiocy.” Not just the left, it seems.
Read MoreA Conversation Starter for Changing Mississippi’s Regulation of Utilities
Bigger Pie Forum commissioned a study of the structure of PSCs around the country. Among its many discoveries, the study found that Mississippi’s arrangement, which has an investigative staff that is a separate entity from the PSC, is unique among the states.
Read MoreThe Public Service Commission vs the Attorney General
The Mississippi Legislature is choosing sides in the fight between Mississippi’s Attorney General and Public Service Commission. The fight is over $600 million of over-charges by Entergy Mississippi to its customers for high cost electricity from its sister companies in other states.
Read MoreKemper Has A Long Tail
Kemper has a long tail. Customers, PSC and MPUS must be patience and remain diligent.
Read MoreStanding Firm and Pushing Back: The PSC Tilts the Scales Toward the Consumer
MPCO brazenly threatens recovery of all costs associated with the gasifiers, definitely not in the best interests of its customers. The PSC tilts the scales toward the consumer threatening a Show Cause Order which demands MPC prove the need of the Kemper Project in the first place or risk having the entire site closed resulting in total write offs of $7.6 billion.
Read MoreWhere’s the Prosecutor – The Need for a Consumer Advocate
It’s not a fair fight. It’s not a fight at all because there is no one representing the little guy. Who should? The AG? He could, but he’s AWOL. Or a consumer advocate?
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